The Wii U console resembles the Wii, except it is much longer with rounder sides. 3 Appearances of peripherals in the Mario series.However, numerous first-party Wii U titles were ported to the Nintendo Switch. Commonly cited reasons for the Wii U's weak sales include confusing marketing, complicated GamePad, few third-party titles, high initial pricing, and lack of Blu-ray and even DVD playback. Because of that, it was discontinued in Europe on October 1, 2016, in North America on November 10, 2016, in Australia on November 14, 2016, and in Japan on January 31, 2017, only around 4 years after the console's initial release.

The Wii U's lifetime sales were outsold in only nine months by its successor, the Nintendo Switch. It was initially expected to sell 100 million units however, it only managed to sell 13.56 million units worldwide, making it Nintendo's least successful home console. Unlike the original Wii and much like the Nintendo GameCube, the Wii U was not very successful when compared to its contemporaries, the Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One. It is also the first home Nintendo console since the NES to be released before its competitors' consoles of the same generation were announced. The Wii U was the third Nintendo console to be released in North America before Japan, the other two being the Wii and the original Nintendo DS. The Wii U was released in the United States on November 18, 2012, in Europe and Australia on November 30, 2012, and in Japan on December 8, 2012. It is the home console counterpart of the Nintendo 3DS. With the name 'Wii' originating from the word 'we', the 'U' ('you') was added to reflect the console's intended appeal to single-player play as well as multiplayer. According to Yoshiaki Koizumi, the Wii U was never shown to Nintendo's software development team prior to its unveiling at E3 2011.

The main feature of the Wii U is its controller, the Wii U GamePad, which has a touch screen, a camera, a microphone, and other features. It was announced during Nintendo's conference at E3 2011. It is Nintendo's first home console since the Super Nintendo Entertainment System to share a portion of its name with its predecessor. The Wii U (codenamed Project Café in development) is an eighth generation home video game console produced by Nintendo as the successor to the Wii.

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