I do feel there was some weird negativity towards the Gamecube from the juvenile gaming press. The hardware was good and the gaming lineup was good. The press kept wondering if Mario needed guns instead of whether the games were of quality or not. Of course, Nintendo responded by saying "ok u guys are fegs, lets target other demos" and then took that approach straight to the bank.
The Wii U however was just a fucking dumb idea considering the market at the time.