Ten years on, here’s why I’ll always love Nintendo’s misunderstood Wii U | Tom Regan

It tanked the game giant's share price and was a gargantuan flop - but it's the most endearingly weird console I've owned

As I sprint down London's Oxford Street, past a queue snaking down the puddle-soaked road, I spot a familiar face smiling back at me. Sorry I'm late," I splutter, muttering something about the trains. The year is 2012, and on this particularly grim November evening, my (then) girlfriend and I are huddled in the cold for the Wii U's midnight launch. This, I thought, is the games console that will change everything.

Looking back 10 years later, I'm not sure what is more surprising: that my girlfriend of three months was willing to queue in the cold for five hours outside a HMV, or that I genuinely believed the Wii U would be a hit. Needless to say, it really was not. Shifting just 13.65m units in its lifetime - compare that to the original Wii's 100m - the Wii U was a failure of gargantuan proportions that tanked Nintendo's share price.