Nintendo’s top competitors, Microsoft and Sony, have had an integrated account system for more than a decade.

For most of the past 10 years, Nintendo’s been behind the technology curve in terms of what its core audience wants. While Microsoft and Sony put effort into consolidating their network infrastructures and improving usability, Nintendo contented itself with pinning its future to an admittedly innovative control scheme. It turned out great for the Wii, but now the company is in the awkward position of hyping its fans on features that are simply expected in the modern-day gaming environment.

You will no longer have to worry about losing access to your digitally purchased content if your console or handheld breaks down and needs to be replaced, for example. This is old hat for other established gaming ecosystems, like PlayStation Network or Xbox Live.

Nintendo’s big advantage is in its first-party catalog, beloved characters like Mario, Link, and Samus Aran, but – as the Wii U quickly taught us all – this stable of favorites is not enough to re-build an audience that strayed to high-def consoles while the Wii floundered for years with outdated hardware. Tremendous games like Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World still weren’t enough to drive console sales.

it’s very likely that the Wii U will never achieve blockbuster console status. It lags too far behind the competitors’ new hardware in terms of raw power and it’s not priced competitively.

The failure here is in not recognizing that the $300 Wii U is in the worst possible position, price-wise. It’s $100 less than the considerably more powerful PS4 and it’s $100 more than the still-viable, content-rich PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 platforms.

Wii U Sales Down 36%, Nintendo Executives Taking Pay Cut

According to US Gamer, global sales data for the Wii U stood at just 3.91 millions units on Sept. 30, 2013. These paltry sales numbers pale in comparison to the true next generations consoles. Sony's PS4 and Microsoft's Xbox One both sold one million units in a single day.

2014 sales have been even worse. Under half a million Wii Us have been sold so far. These sales woes caused Nintendo to slash their sales forecast for the system to just 2.8 million units for all of 2014.

Consumers think that the Wii U is an accessory to the original Nintendo Wii. They think the Wii U gamepad can be used in conjunction with the Wii. This is a massive problem for Nintendo and cannot be easily fixed.

Third party developer Ubisoft, maker of the Rayman series of games, has already scaled back support for Wii U. Electronic Arts or EA has simply dropped support for the system altogether.

We cannot continue a business without winning," Iwata remarked.