Confirm. It was the start of Nintendo leading us out of the casual motion control blue ocean years of the Wii. I still remember when the Revolution was revealed to be the Wii , with the highly anticipated controller turning out to be a motion control gimmick...still the biggest moment of hype deflation in my life. That whole era was the hardest time of being a Nintendo fan, for me. Granted, there were still a ton of great games, but even among them they were often hindered by motion controls (It's so nice having motion-control free versions of Mario Galaxy, Skyward Sword, and DKC Returns on Switch nowadays, it makes the games infinitely better). Oh yeah, and this era had the most casual-focused version of Super Smash Bros, which I wasn't a fan of either.
Granted, the Wii U made a lot of wrong choices coming out of the Wii and only a half-hearted transition away from blue ocean focus, but I think it was a necessary transition and it was necessary for that transitional era to flop in order for Nintendo to finally fully transition back to focusing mainly on dedicated gamers again. And of course, it also had a lot of great games (which got a much deserved second chance on the Switch).
And you know what? I actually enjoyed the gamepad gimmick a lot of the time, unlike motion controls which I've never enjoyed. The way they were incorporated into Arkham City Armored Edition was cool, using them to control Pikmin in Pikmin 3 and Pikmin Adventure was fun, the inventory use in the Zelda ports was fantastic, I liked how it was using in Lego City Undercover, super jumping in Splatoon with the gamepad was really convenient, the touchscreen levels of 3D World were neat, it worked great for custom Smash stages and Mario Maker stages. Overall it was a neat gimmick that didn't intrude too much on the games it was used in. Well, except when it did, like in Star Fox Zero...yeah....but still.