The TV is important so that other players see your run, and that's something you can't replicate on a smartphone or tablet.
I think that's a pretty thin USP and carves out a very very small niche. The Nintendo Direct video and Iwata's subsequent statements introducing the Wii U controller made a pretty bold and audacious case for a new paradigm in using both the personal screen and the home screen. "Let other people see what you're doing" is a pretty unambitious way of executing it.
I'd also note that smartphones and tablets can in fact replicate this.
And the price argument makes even less sense. No this game wouldn't be $0.99 or free on smart devices - because it doesn't exist. Could you do a similar game and sell it at that price, with less content and polish? Sure, just like you can develop a cheap Halo or Modern Warfare clone in Bulgaria and sell it for $2.99 on App Store. But what exactly does that prove?
I don't think this portion of the post approaches my point in good faith.
I am quite certain that high end mobile phone developers can produce and release an endless runner / arcade survival type game similar or identical to Balloon Trip that is as polished and has more content for $0.99. I base this on the fact that this particular genre of game has literally hundreds of entries on iOS, many as polished as this and many with as much content, particularly after free updates.
I am not going to engage in list wars--but ask yourself seriously; do you really not believe that smartphone puzzle and/or arcade games (whether specifically "endless runners", or more generally just survival / score attack / distance attack type arcade games) approach this level of polish and content? I'd invite you to survey any of the, say, top 100 entries in the genre.
That's not to say that Nintendo doesn't make good games or that this might not be a good entry in that genre. Hell, I think Nintendo should do more of this stuff. The entirety of my point is that if Nintendoland is this kind of thing, putting it forward as an introduction to the Wii U is likely going to dilute the system's strengths thanks to competition that exists from mobile/tablet devices. If Nintendo says "Buy Wii U because it can do games like this", I think a great many prospective consumers will say "I already have something better suited to do games like this". The crux of my argument is not about this game, it's about Nintendoland's position as a piece of software intended to act as an ambassador for the Wii U. Even if I concede that mobile/tablet platforms are not capable of this game, and again I disagree, do you think that putting a game like this as the selling face of the console during the important launch season makes sense based on what we've seen so far?
The comparison to Call or Duty or Halo is foolish because the same thing is not true for entries in those genres. It would not be true for many franchises Nintendo makes either. I am not confident developers could or would make, for example, a Zelda-style game with a similar level of polish and content to Zelda itself at the low price-point. Games that are heavily narrative driven, with complex movement schemes and lots of individual art assets, particularly 3d games, are a much higher barrier to entry in terms of skill and man-hours needed to create and polish than these types of games. The two simply cannot be compared.