Topic: Why did they never drop the gamepad?

Wii U really messed up not having known or expected first party software at launch. It didn't help that they seemed to not have a clue about online play and what people wanted. Miiverse was endearing to me, but most casual consumers had no idea what to think of it.

When Playstation 4 rolled out less than a year later in most markets it sealed the deal on Wii U's fate.

By the time people were excited to buy a Wii U (around the release of Mario Kart, Super Smash, etc...) it was already dead because parents or consumers were left with sticker shock compared to the more powerful PS4, or they had already bought their one home console and were not looking to purchase a second home console no matter what Nintendo did.

I don't think the Wii U had a terrible launch. There were plenty of good third party games and a couple of evergreen Nintendo classics in Nintendo Land and NSMBU, and it sold well in the run up to Christmas. It just had a pretty awful first year after that when month after month went by without any big hitters added to the line-up.

Ultimately, I'd think that's what killed it. Dropping the gamepad might have helped them to cut the price without making a loss, but slicing an already slim catalogue in half for those who bought it that way would have made it an even less attractive purchase. That's in contrast to the XB1 dropping Kinect, which cost most gamers nothing at all.

There are a few major things to point out. Firstly when you talk about the Kinect on the XBOne it actually wasn't as critical to the games that came out on that system as the GamePad was on the Wii U. Purely because as an interface to games a touch screen is actually pretty decent. It wouldn't have been as simple as just releasing a different SKU and patching some games. The GamePad was one of the only reasons the Wii U made any sense.

Secondly I think people focus too much on the GamePad as the reason why the Wii U failed. Even if they had dropped the GamePad I doubt things would have been much different. The Wii U was a console that lacked a compelling selling point in general and lacked the games early on to get some momentum. It was a system with a "plastic accessory" during a period when people wanted something different to Guitar Hero and Wii Sports. It was doing "fun" games while the market was at peak Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty and GTA. It was pushing 720p when 4K was just around the corner.

It's super easy to say these sorts of things after the fact especially when you ignore all of the other factors. It's also pretty easy to say the Wii U did everything wrong and ignore the fact that, as a concept, the Switch is very similar to the Wii U. Literally the first thing they show in the first reveal trailer for the Wii U is someone playing on the TV, picking up the GamePad and continuing to play.

They did pretty much the exact same thing with the Switch reveal except for the Switch
1. It was Zelda instead of New SMB (a huge difference given portable New SMB was already a thing)
2. He wasn't going "off TV" because someone else wanted the TV (this isn't a system just for kids)
3. He physically walked outside (which is the major difference between how you can use Switch and Wii U)

But overall it's more or less the same core idea. So lets not pretend that that core idea on the Wii U in and of itself was horrible when Nintendo basically doubled down with it on Switch. Especially given how well the Switch is doing. The Wii U GamePad was, IMO, a decent concept that launched a couple of years too early. As such the Wii U had to sell itself mostly on being a HD Nintendo console and on that front it was a couple of years too late. It wasn't a bad console so much as it was horrible timing for both of its key selling points.

By the time everyone realized the Wii U would be a miserable commercial failure, Nintendo was already deep into the development of games that would make extensive use of the Gamepad (Super Mario Maker, Mario Party 10, Star Fox Zero, Kirby's Rainbow Curse, etc).

You have to also consider how low the sales were in general. Nintendo probably had contracts for certain numbers of units to manufacture. It may have not actually saved them much money to pull the GamePad out of the box. Especially when you consider the fact that they had to have some controller in the box. Also that if they did kill the GamePad they would have had to start selling it separately to give people who brought the GamePad free SKU the ability to buy it.

All around it was never as simple as some people made it out to be.

It really did have some good third party at and near launch. But the lack of Nintendo major titles during the first year hurt.

I thought Nintendo Land was pretty awesome- it just was not a system seller like Zelda. I know several people who bough it just for Zelda and then anything else was gravy. Then, so many people missed the WiiU, Mk8d, Splatoon were like new titles for a lot of gamers.

NSMBU, while it grew on me, was pretty disappointing in some ways. Imo, Rayman Legends was much better and even used the gamepad more effectively.

Maybe it was not possible, but Mario Maker would have sold systems earlier in the life cycle, as in close to launch- it needed some more heavy hitters early on. Then also, not having Minecraft early on probably also hurt.