Than let's say, the GamePad?
The name "Wii U" makes people think to this day that it's solely an add-on to the Wii and the GamePad which looks a lot like a tablet also has folks thinking they can play game cards on it as if it were a 3DS. So Nintendo definitely shot themselves by how they marketed the damn thing.
However, if the Wii U had been bundled only with the Wii U Pro Controller (Wii U's traditional controller) then perhaps the situation would have been a lot different for the better because had they kept it traditional a la PlayStation/Xbox there wouldn't be any confusion what the console's purpose would have been for.
The name "Wii U" makes people think to this day that it's solely an add-on to the Wii and the GamePad which looks a lot like a tablet also has folks thinking they can play game cards on it as if it were a 3DS. So Nintendo definitely shot themselves by how they marketed the damn thing.
However, if the Wii U had been bundled only with the Wii U Pro Controller (Wii U's traditional controller) then perhaps the situation would have been a lot different for the better because had they kept it traditional a la PlayStation/Xbox there wouldn't be any confusion what the console's purpose would have been for.

It's just too little too late for Nintendo to do anything about the Wii U and just release a few games every now and then as they're doing. There's no way around it the Wii U's an utter commercial flop.
P.S.: There were bundles that included the Wii U Pro Controller as a bonus but not as the main controller because the GamePad has games locked (or so that they only work with it even though most of them don't really need a big ass controller like the GamePad to work) to it as well as the System Settings for some reason.