Have you guys looked at the numbers announced today by Nintendo concerning the sales of Wii U and 3DS ? Wii U has been improving its situation everywhere in a year to year basis over 2013. Everywhere except Japan that is where Wii U sales have experimented a sharp decline. So Wii U is holding steady. You can blame that poor performance in Japan on different factors : number one is the bad shape of the japanese economy as we speak, by the record sales of Apple devices there (if you buy a 850$ iPhone, you have less money to spend on a console), and the lack of a great franchise that will sell well to Japanese players during the last quarter (SSB sells to the western audience, not the Japanese gamers). If Animal Crossing Wii U had been served this holiday, in Japan at least, we would be looking at a very different portrait.
Actually no - the reason consoles typically don't go to well in the Japanese market is simply because their lifestyle is vastly different from that of the west. Also not that it's relevant to anything I'm about to say, but the majority of Japanese mobile companies are really considerate of their customers. You may think that they'll have to pay $850 for a new iPhone, but most companies actually allow people to trade in their old iPhone (assuming it's a recent model), and switch it for a newer model, with little to no cost (as long as they remain on their contract), but like I said, that's not relevant to anything - but case in point, it was to show that the Japanese market and industry is incredibly different to how it is in the west.
Japanese houses are actually really small, and because of this they usually only have 1 TV per household (unlike the typical western household which usually have at least 2) - so obviously there is already a struggle for the TV's usage, and not only this, but the amount that Japanese people work is huge. The only real time they can play is early in the morning, but then they run the risk of waking their children up, or being late to work (and being late is really frowned upon in Japanese culture). Same goes for kids, too. Most parents put a lot of pressure on their children to do well in school, and to show up "late" is often seen as embarrassing, so neither kids nor adults have a lot of time to play console games, whether it be due to work, school/study, or sleep schedule (yes, the WiiU did add off-TV play, but it's not a fix all solution).
Not only that, but Japanese culture is not like western culture where people can easily drive to and from work/school - the majority of the population catch public transport, which is why handheld gaming (and smartphone gaming, which is why Apple products have sold so well, because they fit the Japanese culture to a T) is so popular in Japan, because they can play their games whilst being on the train to and from school (which you may think isn't that long, but most kids spend at least 30 minutes going to and from school on the train, same goes for adults who work, too)
It's more or less that console gaming isn't
that practical in Japanese culture as it is to us, so I really don't see how releasing a WiiU version of AC would "boost" WiiU sales in Japan. Of course they would increase sales, that's a given, but they more than likely wouldn't boost them significantly.
Granted, the economy may be a contributing factor, but the main factor is simply because of their way of life.
