Never heard anyone say this "in the wild", neither did I ever come across a single person that got confused by Wii and WiiU.
This looks like something marketing and spin doctors would come up with.

CBS and the FDA might have a shit fit if you use blood innit. :)

I have a *very* rare name/surname combination, so I'm easy to find, or at least I would be if I had a Facebook account, which I don't.
So I've had two employers ask me why they can't find anything about me on Google/Facebook, one of them even asked me straight up if I had served time in prison. So I'm not surprised by the findings, at all.

Just smother it with a pillow and put it out of its misery. Cross-platform support and Indie games won't save it.

I bought Win8 using a pirated Win7. I suspect MS turned a blind eye as well, as my poorly cracked copy constantly nagged about being counterfeit software etc.

I like the Urban Dictionary definition. It's descriptive and succinct
"1. Software that is hastily made, without proper testing, and 'shoveled' down consumers throats in order to make some quick cash. "

We've had them since time immemorial. Indeed, in the past the precursors of LJN sold cheap chess boards made out of clay, straw and cow dung when real developers used hard wood or ivory.

Blaming it on the name... It's a factor but it's not the entire explanation.
Yes, Nintendo will sell a decent amount of machines whenever they unleash their eagerly awaited first party titles, that's basically Nintendo's own analysis and that's the problem. They're going to sell millions of Zelda/Mario/Kart/Smash Bros, but third party developers get to eat shit and nobody will have the confidence to develop proper games for the system apart from shovelware and some token conversions of 360/PS3 games.
At this rate Wii U will have the worst third party library since the Wii and N64. They're lucky they have strong handhelds to keep 'em alive.

After it finishes updating you *have* to create a Live account. This was not required before so I set my birthdate to 1905 and name/surname to fückoffwanker. Choke on it Microsoft! I hope I can contribute in some small way by poisoning your data gathering algorithms.
Looking at the interface, I feel like I gained nothing from this except for multi-coloured metro tiles and a useless start button. Amusingly the system pre-installed a health app on the metro interface. Makes sense for a 108 year old.

I'm only putting up with this shit because of games, help me Gabe Newell, you're my only hope!

I don't know about the xbox controller, as I use a PS3 pad which works nicely. Not as good as a proper arcade joystick, but passable. Heck, SF2 was really playable on the SNES pad once you broke it in.

How do I play Street Fighter or any traditional joypad game on that thing? I don't want to dismiss it out of hand, but I have serious doubts.
It might actually be a better joypad for console fps gaming, but unless I see good TF2 YTbers like shibby2142 praising the pad and pulling off rocket jumps while shovelling people with ease... I'll stick to kb+m.

Nah... I doubt they ever wanted or intended to develop for it to begin with. Some MS first party titles will have it shoehorned into them; but most games, even the vast majority of games will remain multi platform, so putting in kinect functionality is a wasted effort. Just like PS Move, SixAxis or Wiiu Pad support.

... and it shows they really want the xbone to succeed, even if it involves a complete 180.
No matter the complaints over the metro interface in Win8, the only fix they're working on is to make the Metro interface extra sparkly and loaded with bullshit features non of the Desktop users need or want in 8.1.
Goes to show that Windows 8 needs a real competitor to make MS work for the money.

So I'm doing my part!

I ate whale meat some 12 years ago. I remember a heavy nutty/liver taste to it. Other than that, pretty similar to a very dense steak.

Lies! Dirty lies! Windows 8 delivered everythagfhahahaaha heheheh. Can't keep a straight face.
I'm obviously not cut out for marketing.