I really do see the Wii U as a "coffee-table device" because it can do so much to interact with the TV and turn it from being a cable receiver into... well, a media center. That Nintendo would kind of take the idea of the television being the central place a family gathers and try to integrate all these functions into their console to emulate that idea... it's a very ingenious concept.
Iwata's Pre-E3 Nintendo Direct really nailed it- with tablets, smartphones, and laptops, you have a lot of portability, but not a lot of connection. But the TV can really be a gateway to connectivity, and Nintendo intends to nail that down. All of their media features- Netflix, Hulu, Internet... it's all an attempt to make the TV into a communication device. Hell, video-chatting with people on the TV screen is probably one of the smartest ideas they came up with- Skype and whatnot may be nice, but being able to have someone up on the TV screen must be very connecting. And you can stream that video to your tablet and pick it up to go.
Nintendo seems to be taking all the elements of a PC and merging them with a game console to truly create a home entertainment system. It could be just as uniting as a family console as it could for individual gamers. Its an attempt to bring something very "high tech" in nature, and interconnectedness of all your house features, to a single device.