Topic: Do you think the Wii U was rushed to market?

I think every system has serious hardware planning. Companies start development of new consoles as soon as the older ones come out. However, being planned =/= being focused or being planned for a specific date. The Wii U is not a focused system (it seems to be aimed at a hardcore audience in some regards, and a casual audience in others), and the last minute updates and lack of games at launch, along with interviews saying Nintendo had no plans on replacing the Wii for a while suggest that it wasn't planned for winter 2012 either.

Also, I think the Wii U would have actually sold much more if it were launched in November 2013 with the PS4 and XB1. Why? Because it could jump on the hype train just like the XB1 did. After the DRM fiasco, the XB1 was not a popular system, but it still got a ton of coverage and hype thanks to being launched with the PS4.

Hardware wise, they are 100% ready. Whether whoever likes the Wii U hardware, is a different topic... Software wise, they just weren't ready at all.

I think that they just released the hardware ASAP, then figured they'd throw out whatever software they could. I definitely think they "rope-a-doped" the market like @ZyroX72 says. There's no way that they failed to advertise the Wii U, on accident. They're only going to advertise what they think is worthwhile.

I don't really watch TV, but my brother said he's seen every Mario Kart 8 commercial at least 2 times.
Nintendo needed to release Wii U when they did, advertising or not, because Wii was on the way out.

No, I don't think it was. For the life of me, I will never be able to understand why the Wii U's launch lineup caught so much gruff. NSMBU was awesome, ZombiU was awesome, Sonic Racing (not an exclusive, but still) was awesome, and there were a few eShop offerings such as Trine that were spectacular to play with the gamepad. For those screaming for third-party, you had stuff like Black Ops and Assassin's Creed that were only a couple weeks behind the other console releases - that's not that long no matter how you try to twist it.

The PS4 launches with ... uh... that one downloadable twin-stick shooter. Yea. Great launch lineup. <looks around nervously> It's such a good console... ...
The Xbox One launches with ... uh... Ryse (I actually really liked it haha) ... and... Forza. Yea, Forza. If you like race sims.

It's just cool to hate Nintendo right now. With that being said, I'm going to go play Titanfall.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. There was no killer app.. The PS4 and XB1 didn't have one either, but the difference was that Sony and Microsoft's fanbase haven't come to expect a killer app at launch, and they both did get something close to a killer app in a launch window.

With Nintendo, well let me lay it out for you.

NES: Super Mario Bros
SNES: Super Mario World
N64: Super Mario 64
Gamecube: Super Smash Bros. Melee (not a true launch title, but it launched within a month of the console's release.
Wii: Wii Sports and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

So for Nintendo fans, there is an expectation of a strong killer app at or around launch, and there simply wasn't one. Yes, the Wii U had pretty good support titles, in part thanks to being launched around a very good holiday for game launches, but those don't sell systems.

I wouldn't say it was rushed I think the develoment team got there hands on a HD system and they didnt realize how much would go into making the games for it and since the team at nintendo is relatively small compared to other companies, I think they miscalculated with the software coming out for the system.

I think Nintendo didn't care enough.
They really could have dominated this time had they gotten a hold of Developers better and started getting Collector's Editions out, getting Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, Far Cry 3, Grand Theft Auto 5, Dark Souls 2, South Park Stick of Truth, Battlefield 4, Soul Calibur 2 HD, etc etc...but it seemed that they didn't go into it far enough.
No This System was not Rushed, just poorly planned.

Hard to say if it was rushed. The fact that they weren't ready for HD development is pretty telling, though. They probably wanted a year ahead of the competition, but ended up getting blown up in their face with no real killer apps within the launch period. I mean, my first real must buy was Pikmin 3 of August 2013. Everything before then was just dust collecting time.

I guess you could say it was rushed. They didn't talk to any 3rd parties like they should have, considering they made it a point to allow the WIi U to have easy 360 ports. Imagine it having Bioshock or games like Farcry. Wasted oppurtunity for Nintendo I feel. Well, they're stuck with what they have, so let's see if they can salvage it.

@iKhan

To be honest I felt it had to do more with lack of a killer app at launch but how shakey the future of the platform was before it came out. We didn't know anything first or third party coming up and that soured alot of people on the system. It didn't help that everything they were riding on fell out of the launch window into the second half of the year. That coupled with the rumors of the PS4/XB1 did the wii u in.