I'm kinda thinking the Wii U will be the "Dreamcast" of this coming generation, being released earlier than the competition, not being as powerful as those will be, but will be a great system. It will have just with one difference. The problems that led the Dreamcast to its demise won't be present with the Wii U, considering how well Nintendo is doing right now.
Oh really? I have a Dreamcast and what lead to its demise was GD-Rom's, Nintendo seems to be leaning towards the proprietary disc format and not BluRay aswell, so...
It was more than that, like how it was easily hackable to play backups, Sega didn't have the fund to push the system, and that they in the end felt selling hardware wasn't profitable enough that, based on what the new chair of Sega at the time said, they wanted to be strictly software-based. From what I see, Nintendo is not following that path. Even with the Wii not having the ability to play DVDs (except through early hacked versions), it still sold very well in comparison.