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[PseudoViper]

The BIGGEST mistake Nintendo made was naming it, Wii U. It caused a lot of confusion where many people really didn't know the difference or even knew it was a new console.

Also, the tablet was executed pretty terribly; crappy battery life and very limited range.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

The name was the Wii U's mistake.

Evilore's biggest mistake was not placing poll limits on GAF users.

 

[magnumpy]

 

[Kanhir]

The problem is that it took Nintendo's biggest strengths, local multiplayer, and basically took it away by having the tablet as a controller. People likely weren't going to buy another tablet.

They couldn't even get an extra GamePad unless they were in Japan, where extras sold for an insane 12800 yen.

The BIGGEST mistake Nintendo made was naming it, Wii U. It caused a lot of confusion where many people really didn't know the difference or even knew it was a new console.

It was a combination of that and exclusively referring to the GamePad as "New Controller" in the release trailer. If we hadn't already had the Cafe leak, it really would have looked like Nintendo was just presenting a new controller for the Wii.

 

[GoldenEye98]

I actually picked up a used Wii U a year ago. Despite it's lack of success it's actually a nice machine if just want to be able to play the majority of Nintendo's catalog.

 

[Ivellios]

I actually picked up a used Wii U a year ago. Despite it's lack of success it's actually a nice machine if just want to be able to play the majority of Nintendo's catalog.

Not only that, if you homebrew, it becomes one of the best emulator machines. It runs Gamecube perfectly on the tablet, N64 and PSX games also run pretty well, alongside PSP, GBA, SNES and NES.

 

[kraspkibble]

a mix of shit marketing and calling it Wii U.

give it half decent marketing and call it something else and it would've done better. I mean WTF does U even mean? Call it Wii 2 at least...

the problem with the Wii U was that people never really heard of it (talking about the casual market) and those who did never really understood WTF it was. Also it ditched the gimmick that made the Wii sell which was the motion controls. OK maybe the Wii U still had motion controls but you couldn't play Wii Sports/Fit with a bloody stupid tablet could you? The nunchuck controllers were vital to the success of the Wii and Nintendo ditched it.

I actually picked up a used Wii U a year ago. Despite it's lack of success it's actually a nice machine if just want to be able to play the majority of Nintendo's catalog.

sure if you want to play them but it's still not a good experience.

i bought a Wii U to play Zelda BOTW + NSMBU + Mario Kart 8 and while the games are great the console sucks ass. I returned it after 2 days and just got a Switch. As of today on Switch I now have Zelda + NSMBUD + MK8D

 

[Jubenhimer]

There were a lot of major problems with the Wii U both conceptually and design wise. If I had to pick the biggest problems it'd be...

* The Name and Marketing - Whoever came up with the name "Wii U" I hope has been fired at some-point, because its one of the most lazy, confusing, and vague names for a console ever. It tells you nothing about what the system is, and makes it seem like yet another add-on for the Wii. Not to mention that the Wii had already lost a lot of momentum by the time of the Wii U's announcement, so it just feels like Nintendo banked too much on brand recognition that wasn't there.

* Bad Hardware Design - The biggest reason the Wii U suffered from a lack of third party support wasn't due to it being under-powered. The Nintendo Switch, all of Nintendo's other handhelds, even the Wii to a lesser extent, prove that even under-powered consoles can still get decent third party support. No, the main culprit was all due to the choice of architecture Nintendo chose. PowerPC and a GPGPU in an era where developers started moving away from custom SoCs and an outdated architecture was completely tone deaf, causing the WIi U to lack all the tools and engines that the other consoles adopted this gen, leading to it not getting even games that could technically run on it. Wii U was designed with an outdated 7th gen mentality that everyone had abandoned by that point and the console suffered because of it. It's no surprise Nintendo went with an off-the-shelf PC-based Tablet processor for its current system vs whatever mess they went with on Wii U.