Not asking if they will abandon gamepad fully, but to lower the price do you think Nintendo would sell a Wii U without the gamepad. They have a 3ds without the 3d, while doing the same with Wii U would be harder since the 3d doesnt affect gameplay I dont think its far fetched personally as damn near all the games on Wii U so far could be played without the gamepad anyway. 

I don't see it happening, they are already down to $300, which is pretty good for a next gen console that hasen't even been out for a year yet.  

If they do then they got me as their customer.

most likely not, at least not until they come up with a cheaper alternative that still allows you to play Nintendo Land, Wii Party U, Game&Wario and some of the parts of TW101(only 1 or 2 parts are hard to mange without drawing on the gamepad), a more sensitive pro controller with gyros might do the trick
maybe late 2016 we might see something

Since the gamepad is pretty central to the Wii U's UI, I doubt it.

No they won't..... omg please stop threads like this already. We had it like 5 million times now.

......Give it a year and a half.

no.

Wii U without gamepad would be a direct competitor to two more powerful consoles and have nothing unique to bring to the table.

The only way we'll see this happen is if Nintendo abandons Wii U and brings out a new console that is within the power levels of its competitors and tosses in just the pro and wiimote controllers.

Personally, that would be stupid IMO. I think the gamepad is awesome and the Wii U is fantastic as is. All its ever needed is games and now they are here and on the horizon.

kinect... not that I like it more. But I wouldn't really say a gamepad with a touchsceen on it is more unique than kinect.

All consoles are capable of remote play to some extent. X1 is the weakest as far as I'm aware, whereas wii-u is the easiest with the tablet controller.

I don't think they will do this, but it definitely should happen as long as the majority of games released on the system don't use the gamepad in any significant ways. It should be an option for those (probably many of them) who don't see why they must pay extra for something that isn't even necessary.