In response to the OP, two things
Make the System a Wii HD: There was no reason to try and do something with the Gamepad. All Nintendo did was confuse or alienate its customers. The Gamepad never brought any value, and consumers always saw Wii as "motion controls". The Wii was already a success, it didn't need a new gimmick. Essentially, Nintendo should have just make a Wii 2. Call it the Super Wii or Wii HD. Consumers would quickly understand the point of the system and would have hopped on board if it had better versions of the games they liked, such as a Super Wii Sports or a Super Wii Fit.
Release the Console in 2013: Iwata wasn't great at this whole business thing but there was no good reason to release the system in 2012. All Nintendo did was cut off the Wii too early. It was cheap enough that it was at a prime price point and would have still kept selling. In FY 2012 the system still sold 9 million units worldwide. This was after the Wii U was announce, so had Nintendo held off and even released some smaller, cheaper games on the system, they could have seen even better numbers. The rush to market really hurt them because they were one-upped by Sony and Microsoft a year later and didn't have enough software to launch with. If the Wii HD had a game like Nintendo Land, New Super Mario Bros, Wario Ware and Pikmin at launch, it would have done a lot better and attracted more 3rd party support.
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