This...well said

What ever the regular next-gen controller costs, you need to take that off the gamepad cost to get it's true differentiating cost

Dualshock retails for $60, but it is much cheaper than that. Console manufacturers make lots of profits in that kind of peripherals. So, the PS3 isn't 60 bucks more expensive 'cause of the Dualshock.

On the other hand, the Gamepad is really expensive to produce.

And I agree, I think adding controlers like gamepad or kinect increase the cost without having a big increase on the experience.

I understand this. But your tablets don't control what's displayed on your tv and you have to switch between controller and tablet. the gamepad is a true all-in-one and it's pretty cheap.

Man this is a shame. If the U came without a pad it could have been about a $100 cheaper. That'd be crazy.

I know the pad is meant to be Wii U's differentiating factor but I have yet to see any games even from Nintendo that really makes you go WOW and think how your game couldn't be possible without the pad.

Plus devs seem to be using tablets with the new consoles to pretty much accomplish what Nintendo have done to a certain degree. Nintendo honestly seems to have dug themselves into a hole this time.

You see, you really have to think about this from Nintendo's perspective and what they did is not dumb at all.  If you guys (not just talking to you here) were in the position the guys at Nintendo were in when deciding this, you probably would have went with it as well.  

What you have to think about is that if you dropped the price and made the gamepad a secondary device compatible with the Wii U, the gamepad would have a very low attach rate, especially considering many people wouldn't know what it's used for or how to use it.  The other thing is that if you wanted games to incorporate the gamepad as an essential tool for the game, things would become thousands of times more difficult to deal with.  That game would have to have a gamepad bundled with it like Guitar Hero guitars were bundled with the system, greatly increasing the cost of the game itself.  Then there would be people who already has a gamepad, but not a copy of the game and then you would have to create two types of copies.  Then people would get confused unless you put it real big somewhere that it requires the gamepad to play.  Well then you are put in a real pickle here because, even though the system may be cheaper and some more people may buy it (not that many more, delusions are in place if you really think price makes that much difference) you will be cutting down on a lot of potential profits on your first party games and also losing a lot of the 3rd party support Nintendo already didn't have.  Then there are the other functions of the gamepad that would have to be thrown out entirely because the costs wont outweigh the benefits of adding them in.  

There are way too many factors at play here.  If they didn't add the gamepad with the Wii U, then they would have not had a gamepad at all and, in turn, not made the system the way it is to begin with.  You would essentially be asking for another clone of the PS4, which Nintendo's system would essentially be (discounting the games).

Christ Nintendo. They add around $100 to the cost of a console for a peripheral you didn't even show the benefits of at E3? Unless these new games have some new gamepad functionality that hasn't been covered yet, it would appear that they are losing their minds.

A $200 Wii U with a controller pro instead could have done really well.

It's also something I'm rarely, if ever, going to use for non-gaming purposes. I have less than no interest in using my console as a second-rate computer: I already have a gaming PC, two laptops, and a smartphone. I'm not even interested in off-TV play: I bought a big TV for console gaming, and if I want to play on a handheld well, that's what my 3DS is for.

I understand that some folks, such as yourself, like the damn thing, but I submit, based on the fact that the system is selling like crap right now, that the majority of people feel the same way I do: the multimedia, non-gaming distractions carry little weight, and it's the games that matter. And as this E3 has demonstrated, the Gamepad doesn't have enough to offer in that regard to justify its pricetag.

Put alternatively, $100 for something I don't want is not "cheap."

Alternatively, they could have ditched the Gamepad entirely, stuck to an improved version of what the market decided, with its dollars, that it really, really liked, and built upon their most successful console of all time.

Wise words.