Basically same thing happened to the PS3/PSP which everyone forgets developers didn’t want to deal with it and Sony had similar ideas, probably the biggest thing that hurt the Wii U was their target audience were growing up and moving on especially with how dominant the PS2 was.I know for me it was right around the time I was having a family I had bought a PS3 first (Which was expensive)along with Metal Gear and both sat unwrapped because I never had time .The next wave of gamers it was all about the Graphics and waiting to play all the great sequels from the past generations, the other thing I’m sure had and influence was the controllers ,a good chunk of gamers didn’t like the Wii setup (to clunky) and Wii U kind of made it seem you needed the tablets to even play. Throw in the fact PS3/360 had a 6 year start that was just way to much time to even attempt any recovery from that generation even though the Wii was having success gamers and gaming was evolving with online. Plus developers were already aware that PS4/Xbox one were on the horizons and that the Wii U was not a system designed for the future but the past.
I bought my Wii to play Skyward Sword and I bought my Switch to play Breath of The Wild with the lack of games on it after a year or so I did eventually buy a Wii U to play both Wind Waker and Twilight then also eventually modded it to add everything on it. I do like the system and the ability to play games on the tablet is fun until you try to walk away
. I think one thing that the Wii U was going to do was be fully backwards compatible with previous generations because it was coping the PS3 but once Sony pulled the plug and tried profiting instead Nintendo changed their stance ,would that have had impact on their fans probably to some degree but nothing where it may have had a major effect. The only interesting thing is Nintendo is still pushing all the same ideas today it had planned for the Wii U but now they are working after even a longer time
.. Now bring me Breath of The Wild 2
also R.I.P Paul Haddad voice of Leon in the Original Re2