I think as soon as Nintendo can they will replace the gamepad with something smaller which is both better for games and cheaper for Nintendo to manufacture.
However I don't know how much stock is still about of the existing wii u. I'm sure at this point they are probably just manufacturing to meet demand however they stopped making the 8GB model a long time ago yet you still see stock about of that model. Some of the special editions seem to have old stock wii u consoles and have simply been re-packaged to make them fresh again for retail. This makes me think Nintendo are sitting on a lot of stock reserves for wii u. Maybe enough to last this year out.
This is probably the dilemma for Nintendo. However a common tactic is to announce a new model perhaps a 128GB wii u with a revised gamepad and then use that as the basis for dropping the price of the original wii u to clear stocks.
I suspect the wii u isn't currently being manufactured and when it starts again it will be a new product sku with a smaller gamepad.
