The Wii released at a price of $250, and the 32GB Wii U was $350 at launch... I personally feel like the Wii U's initial price was a bit too high to entice any casual buyers, but combined with poor marketing and a lack of games for casual buyers (no Wii Sports title was available at launch), and it didn't make a lot of sense. For the core gamer market, the Wii U was priced higher than the PS3 and Xbox360 while offering less games, and only marginally better hardware... all the while with the PS4 and Xbox One on the way, and no Wii U exclusives that would lure any core gamers to buy the system anyway.
What do you pick really? The slightly too high price? The lack of any 3rd party dev support? The lack of any big exclusives in the first year, up to the PS4 and XBO launch? Abandoning the casual gamers? Abandoning the core gamers? The Wii U was just a disaster all round.