Imagine this scenario: Nintendo needs time to develop their successor for the Wii, but the sales for Wii are going down quickly. Nintendo decides to create the Wii Gamepad. A controller that has a screen and you could use to play your Wii content on it. It has no motion controll tech on it, it's just a Wii Classic controller with a screen. Nintendo decides to release it to keep the Wii alive for one or two more years while they develope their next machines. If I remember correctly, people talked a lot about the real WiiU Gamepad when the WiiU was announced, even if they mistook it for a Wii peripheral. In this scenario, they are right, and the thing is released to the market at the same price as the Wii Fit Board, and includes a Wii Gamepad Party, maybe Nintendo makes a deal with a company like Netflix or Amazon to give a free subscription for a year, making the Wii+Gamepad attractive as an entertaiment device.Nintendo then uses the time given by the Gamepad to make their machine.
What do you think it would have happened? Would the Gamepad have been a success, or a failure? Would their 8th gen console have faired better than the WiiU, or worse? How would the competition have reacted?