We purchased a Wii U for our children for Christmas 2013 and about 2 months ago it stopped working. The red light on the console flashes all the time and the system won't power on. It's quite frustrating. We've unplugged it and plugged it back in and tried to reset it to no avail. When we search the internet it talks about it being the "red light of death".
As expensive as these systems are there's no reason it should stop working after less than 4 months of infrequent use.