Alright let me start my wall of text regarding the status of the WiiU
The basic idea of the WiiU is solid. Nintendo recognized that the Wii may have made them lots of money because grandpa bought it to play bowling but you can't sell the same system to the same crowd since whats the point of buying it if you have something that can play your generic bowling game. They improved the online system, which doesn't use friend codes in the sense that you don't need to give it to a friend in order to play with them and it is still free. It also brought Nintendo into the era of HD, albeit a little late but no matter.Lastly games made by Nintendo tend to be of high quality as well most of the time and yes, if you bought a WiiU, you will buy all the Zelda, Mario, Metroid etc games. There will be some quality third party games like Bayonetta 2 as well.
The problems with the WiiU however, outweight the benefits for the average gamer. Possibly the biggest issue is the hardware specs. It only has a small 1.24Ghz processer, a video card that only pushes out 550MHz and 2 Gigabytes of RAM. This is going to be of serious consequence for the next generations of games. While they may play in HD, to think that something as massive as Destiny, Watch Dogs, and other next gen titles will play to their full capacity on the WiiU is just not possible and as I'm sure you are aware, none of these titles are being developed for the U. Sure Zelda will be huge, so will Mario and all the party games/Kart games and everything else of that sort, but the lack of third party support is even worse then it was for the Wii. Lets look at sales for two great third party titles that released late on the Wii, Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story
Xeno:
North America: 0.39m
+ Europe: 0.16m
+ Japan: 0.16m
+ Rest of the World: 0.13m
= Global 0.84m
The Last Story:
North America: 0.20m
+ Europe: 0.11m
+ Japan: 0.18m
Rest of the World: 0.03m
= Global 0.53m
Ouch. Those are two great third party titles, with great review scores to boot, that barely got bought. Mind you these are completely unique games and they were only available for the Wii. Its easy to see why as a third party developer that the WiiU is not a great choice to sell your game. The console still carries the stigma of only catering to Nintendo and 'shovelware', even if that isn't necessary true. Add to the fact that again, mega blockbusters like Battlefield, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and other series won't be available or will merely be a cut down version from whats available to the Xbone and PS4 means that yet again Nintendo misses out on making some major money.
On this thread there was talk about local multiplayer and how fun that was. I certainly don't disagree, I've spent countless hours playing Brawl with one of my friends and playing Mario Kart with three other people (and kicking their ass mind you). So how does local multiplayer work out for the WiiU? Well you better hope they bought their own WiiU at least from what I can tell (somebody please correct me on this one if I am wrong). That means that your friend needs to buy a WiiU to enjoy it with you locally. Thats a hefty investment that may or may not be worth it.
Lastly, using the WiiU controls in anyway that involves 'waggling' it does not leave much control for the player. Many reviews have pointed this out as a problem, especially with Batman: Arkym City Armored Addition.
In short, the WiiU will be fine for people that love Nintendo games, but to your average gamer, who has not grown up with Mario or Sonic and instead grew up with Halo and Grand Theft Auto, may increasingly not go for the 'nostalgia' of playing a series that started before they were born. One added point is the sales have not been great. They have been good but not great:
http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox-360-tops-us-january-sales-wii-u-struggles/http://www.gamesradar.com/wii-u-sales-top-3-million-nintendo-cuts-full-year-forecast/
