There's an OK amount to play here though, there is a new Mario, and COD and Assassin's Creed are new installments of the two of the three biggest third party franchises at the moment. Not everyone plays every PS3/360 game either, so there probably are quite a few people who never got to play Ninja Gaiden 3 or Darksiders 2 or Tekken Tag Tourney 2 or maybe even Arkham City. 

Zombi U is a much better game than Red Steel. Nintendo Land is deeper than Wii Sports. 

The bigger problem is fundamentally at its core, I don't think this is a system that casual players want (it totally takes gaming away from the motion based simplicity of the Wii, back to the couch) and its not one that hardcore gamers want either. They have been waiting 6-7 years for a large leap beyond what they already have in the PS3/360 and this ain't it. 

It's a system without a target audience fully of wishy-washy design decision (well we sorta want core gamers, but we want casuals too). 

And that Q1-Q2 release lineup is problematic too. 

I bet they cut it in 2014 without apology. Hard to predict how it will be selling a year from now without knowing anything about its Holiday releases or competition this year though.

You guys are REALLLLLLY taking this too far. Wii U sales in the US are not "horrible" or "bad." They are "okay." The December sales of the PS3 vs the Wii U is extremely unfair when the economy was WAY better back then, the PS3 didn't have the same kind of competition going on as the Wii U (Wii U is going against two consoles with already established user bases + its name recognition is a bit low). The price is NOT the reason for this. The Wii U could do better, but stop saying it's bad when everything was down this year (except 3DS and PSVita, which doesn't really count having only one month last year).

So I would say the earliest we will see a price cut for the Wii U is at the end of the year. It kind of depends on what happens with the other next gen consoles.

Personnaly, I think Wii U Price Cut could be official in September of this year, before the new Xbox will be avalaible.
This Price Cut with one or two big games (Zelda, Mario, ssmb, I don't know) and new Packs will produce the same effect what 3DS Price Cut (with Mario Land and MK).
Just my opinion, but depend of the success of the Wii U for the next months...

Some fine stealth trolling here...
F*I*N*E

How much heat is Iwata going to take if the Wii U comes nowhere close to that 5.5 million shipped estimate?

Because right now, I think Jan-March sales for Wii U are going to be extremely weak with that lineup of games. Even April-June doesn't look so hot (Wii Fit U is going to be a dud for Nintendo, it's time has passed, people aren't ponying up for $350+ to play a few new Wii Fit minigames).

At $300-$350 with no new type of Wii Sports phenomenon, this is a system that's going to be restricted to basically the most hardcore of Nintendo fans. 

I don't think Nintendo has a choice. Even if they do, it's basically off the table if PS3/360 get price cuts around summer time, which are quite frankly overdue. 

You can say "don't drop the price", but who the hell is the audience for this machine then? Older Nintendo fans with their own disposable income? How long can they carry the machine? This is a one-way ticket to GameCube-land. 

that's kind of obvious  

Like others have pointed out; a good E3 with announcements won't cause a surge in sales. The only announcements of this kind that affect sales is the unveiling and release dates of new consoles, they tend to slow sales by a fair deal. As for announcing great games with the ability to shift hardware; how about New Super Mario Bros U? Among the top three franchises in the Nintendo stable right now? Its a truly massive title and there is little else besides MK that could have the same impact at any given time in the console's life cycle.

Fatal Frame games? The whole franchise has barely crossed 500-600k sales total across four titles and three platforms. Hardly an earth-shattering event when a new one is announced and subsequently released. Metroid? Metroid is by far the smallest of the classic Nintendo franchises with the Metroid 3 on the Wii managing about 1.6 million sold, a mere speck on the library map compared to Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong. Xenoblade Chronicles sold about 850k so far on the Wii, a decent amount but certainly not impressive compared to a whole lot of titles this gen (hint; there are about 450-500 million sellers across the PS3, 360 and Wii thus far). Monolith's new IP? Could be anything and could very well be worthless, you can't put stock in a possible eventuality having the outmost positive outcome, same goes for "rumored big exclusives being grabbed by Nintendo", such hopes will often be dust when they are faced with reality. Bayonetta 2? The sequel to a medicore selling 3rd person action game with no roots as a genre or franchise on a Nintendo platform? No, don't bet on such a fickle horse.

Iwata is "good with Wii U sales". Well, what's he going to say? "These sales are not terribly impressive and we're going to fail to meet our fairly conservative forecasts. Such a shame." He also stated that there was no heir to the DS imminent, about two months before the 3DS was unveiled and then launched shortly after. He also said that the Wii would live as long as the PS3 and 360 and that they would never be the first to enter the 8th generation.

Personally, I think E3 will be an underwhelming experience for many Nintendo fans. Announcements of the usual suspects and the glaring absence of proper 3rd party support. Now, listen, I'm not trying to be rude or ruin your hopes or anything but I think you're being completely unrealistic and have too many expectations for the near future. Overall, I have a feeling that 2013 will be a poor year for Nintendo.

Is not a choice, no price cut in 2013.

With the 3DS sos trong what is the point if they can absorb the losses. If they had to I was going to do it on the Nextbox arrival date just in time for next Black Friday. Unless of course they bring a good number of 3rd (exclusive or not) and first party titles and the console is not winning...