It really does appear as if Nintendo either does not believe in the Wii U, or does not understand the appeal of their own console. Perhaps they are waiting for the summer to really push it in the market so as to not waste resources.
... I don't know.
this is my hypothesis of what happened behind the scenes:
2010: nintendo was planning to launch the 3ds worldwide at the end of the year with the wii u hitting at some point late 2011. they were unprepared for the level of work required for 3ds games, and wound up pushing the device back several months. they also expected the system to sell on its extremely positive word of mouth from e3 2010, and expected it to be their little profit-maker at $250 while they spent r&d on the wii u.
2011: wii u games were also giving them difficulties, so they pushed launch back to the first half of 2012 to give their teams more time. when the 3ds floundered in every major region, it became their number one focus, and work on all but the most important wii u titles (namely, nintendo land and nsmbu) were dropped to focus on saving the 3ds. because of this, they were forced to push the wii u back even further, and had less games ready than they would have liked.
2012: because the 3ds took up so many resources, and that it had gone from making them profits to making them losses, nintendo took a very conservative approach to the wii u's launch. now, i think the could have had better advertising, but the amount was pretty low, and it has continued to stay almost nonexistent after launch.
2013: now that shit is really hitting the fan, nintendo will likely abandon the 3ds in favor of saving the wii u (they did a similar thing with the gamecube and gba in the early part of last decade). they are probably hedging their bets on when to start some sort of blitz leading into a relaunch. at this point the system's doing so poorly that a game like pikmin on its lonesome probably won't do anything, but coupled with another major release or two in a row, it could spark some interest among hardcore fans that don't own the system (because it's tracking below even the gamecube- so there are some older nintendo fans who don't have one of these things).
and all of this is going on amidst restructuring and building new studios. this will be a transition generation for nintendo, kinda like the gamecube era was when the old r&d teams were merged into parts of spd, ird, and ead. it might even be a sort of lost generation where they just try to keep their head down and get through the generation while thinking up their next move (again, like the gamecube).
the one thing that's weird to me is why nintendo went the lazy route. in 2004, touch screen/dual screen gaming was a foreign idea. hell you had people claiming they would never use one in public because it seemed so silly (there were also comparisons to defunct touch screen devices). it was a gamble, but it paid off, and now touch screens are one of the most common means of input. in 2006 they gambled again with motion controls, and once again it paid off. now, it appears that all next-gen consoles will have motion controls of some sort, and even the vita and 3ds have the ability. in both cases, they backed up their beliefs with software. i think there was some legitimate excitement for touch screen gaming and motion controls within nintendo. but 3d? it seems like it was something they were sitting on for a long time and figured now was the time 3d was popular, so they might as well get it out. the gamepad? tablets are popular, so people will buy another tablet device.
