The Wii U released in November, 2012. It was the first video game console that I witnessed it's beginning all the way to the end as an adult out of high school. I was hanging around Holla Forums both on 4chan and Holla Forums throughout it's lifetime.
From the get-go, it was criticized for many different reasons. The controller was gimmicky, it was too bulky, the console was underpowered, the online service was terrible, there were no games worth purchasing, etc. and so forth.
However, by fall 2013, as the PS4 and the Xbox One were being launched, many facts started to bubble up to the surface.
1. The Wii U was the cheapest option between the PS4 and Xbox One, and the purchase with the most value since every Wii U console SKU by that point was being released with a game or two.
2. The Wii U was the only video game console that featured backwards compatibility when Sony and Microsoft ripped that feature from their consoles, with Microsoft later offering it through patches.
3. The Wii U was the only console that allowed you to use accessories and controllers from the previous console. The PS4 and Xbox One was incompatible with almost anything from their predecessor consoles, most notably the controllers.
5. The quality of games that the Wii U had alone in 2013 (Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101, Super Mario 3D World, The Wind Waker HD) was worlds beyond the first party offerings of each console (Knack, Killzone: Shadow Fall Ryse: Son of Rome, Dead Rising 3, Forza Motorsports 5)
6. It was the only console out of the three that offered free online multiplayer without the need of a paid subscription service after Sony required PS4 users to subscribe to PlayStation Plus.
7. The tablet controller, for all its faults, was actually comfortable to hold and offered a more unique and original experience playing games while other consoles were playing the latest Madden or NBA 2k or Battlefield title.
Yet, despite all these great things, the Wii U was largely considered a failure, and many on Holla Forums didn't bother to have any interest in it until an emulator was developed so that users could play the games without purchasing the hardware or games ("I'll only play it when it's free!")
Now with the release of Breath of the Wild last month, the Wii U is now dead, and the metaphorical maggots are only now sifting and consuming away at the dead carcass through CEMU. We talk so much about "voting with our wallets" and not buying into "anti-consumer" practices in the hopes of discouraging companies from employing them, yet the Wii U was the most pro-consumer console purchase a person could have made in the last 5 years, and it failed.
We talk so much about how the industry is going to shit with overhyped Triple-A titles, DLC/Season passes, paid online subscriptions, and the Wii U literally did not have any of that (partly because Triple-A publishers stopped publishing games on the Wii U after 2013).
In essence, the Wii U was the perfect girl who offered everything you wanted, but you ignored her because of some trite and trivial reason (tits weren't big enough, lips not full enough, teeth not perfect enough) while continuing to bash the video game industry for essentially not being more like the Wii U.
She was right there, and you blew it, Holla Forums. I saw the whole fucking thing from beginning to end, and you blew it. You could have had it all, and you blew it.
The next time you sit there in front of your computer typing away your frustrations over the next big headline of some Triple-A game coming out in the fall with a season pass that costs almost as much as the game, or offering overpowered multiplayer weapons if you pre-order it from Best Buy, remember that it didn't have to be this way, and you have no one to blame but yourself for this.
You blew it, Holla Forums.
