Nah, the gamepad is what makes the WiiU unique, without it is just a Wii HD.

A "Wii HD" would be selling better than what the Wii U is currently. 

"Unique" isn't always a good thing. Especially when "unique" is losing you money and driving away customers as a business. We've had two holiday seasons to give this controller a chance -- it doesn't appeal to the mass market and is not doing anything for system sales, in fact it's probably prohibiting them. 

But great, some fans on the internet get to say "it's unique!" ... a lot of good that does Nintendo. 

Yes, you are right. My statement was more about my personal feeling not about rational decisions and I don't want to say that Nintendo shouldn't do this but I would prefer other ideas but maybe there will we be no oppurtunity.

According to Iwata Nintendo is still "working on ways to make the value of the gamepad stand out to consumers" or something. So they are not going to drop it. I still don't see the value in the gamepad though. It would be a nice peripheral but it's not a good standard controller. Donkey Kong won't use it at all and they still didn't confirm 5-player support for Mario Kart. Bayonetta will be better on a Pro Controller, Smash Bros. as well and I don't see how Yarn Yoshi could benefit from a second screen.

It would be too difficult to do that now. Currently you must use the gamepad to use your Wii U (you can't turn off the gamepad as it also turns the console off!) and every game supports it in some way. Doing a Wii U without a gamepad isn't as simple as you lot think.

The gamepad was a part of the what drew me to Wii U as it made the console unique to the competition.

Anyway, you lot can make as many threads on this as you like but Nintendo won't change a thing. Deal with it.

Yes it should be dropped. Will it? No.

MS will figure it out with kinect before Nintendo with the game pad.

1.  No, you don't.  You can turn on the system and play Mario just fine with a Wiimote without touching the Gamepad.  Yes, the GP does turn on as well, but there's nothing that Ninty couldn't patch to fix any inconsistencies.  And unless you're talking about off-TV play, DKCTF says Hi with its black screen while you play.

2.  Why not?  The two main issues - splitting the userbase and the UI - are addressed in the OP, so what else is there?

3.  Fair enough for you personally, but it's sure not selling the console at the moment.  At least not at its current price, and Nintendo can't lower the price without dropping the GP.  And the console still has one big unique feature - Nintendo exclusives - just like the Gamecube did.  Difference is, GC was priced right... and so far, is tracking much higher in sales aligned.

4.  Lol, I'm still waiting for links to this massive abundance of "Should Ninty add a GP-less SKU" threads here on the Chartz.  Particularly from a Nintendo fan like myself who was a big advocate for not separating the GP until recently.  This "lot" would like to see evidence of this.

My question would be why keep it?

It´s been 15 months and they haven´t been able to make the case the Gamepad is a selling point.We can all see it isn´t.

Since that is the case, if dropping the Gamepad means they get a better shot at profitability with this failing console, then do it.They now have to find the best way to ride this out, it´s a system that´s on track to sell worse than the GC, and development costs are far higher than they were on the purple box.

I have a WiiU and voted yes because I need a new gamepad. I need them to start selling them separately. The left analog stick is acting up and it's out of warrenty already. I don't want to miss it for weeks shipping it off for some overpriced repair.