the year of iwata. LOL

Exactly because they have to change their target group. The casual gamers and the families have a Wii, they don't want to pay so much money of a better version of it and often didn't heard about the Wii U. Now the 3DS is more popular but it was nothing different. They have just the option to make more games the gamers want or make the Wii U so cheap that even a casual gamer or families buy it.

Another fail decision from Nintendo. Nobody cares of Yoshi outside from Mario games.
Year of Zelda or even better, Year of Metroid.

Fail? No yours is a fail. Its just some title and beside Zelda might have 2 games this year and we dont even kno yet if we will get a metroid game this year. Its pretty pointless to have a year of Zelda/Metroid. 

That said Year of Yoshi can have several things, Year of Luigi had more than 7 things leading up for the character. Yoshi can easily have more than 5, and Yoshi is a big character, even outside of Mario games (which i dont get your point, thats like saying Samus isnt big outside of Metroid games)

I don't think that casuals and families would necessarily buy the Wii U if it were cheaper; I don't know why people are acting like the console will rebound if they implement a massive price drop. Casuals, as you said, simply don't see the value in an upgraded Wii and are turned of by the Gamepad, not to mention that many don't even know what a Wii U is. I think they need to focus on doing what they can to make the Wii U a more desirable product rather than simply dropping the price.

Regardless, I don't think that what it's the "Year of" really matters to anyone except hardcore gamers on the Internet. It's just better if we get a focus something that isn't Mario-related. We all love Mario and NIntendo's platfromers, but if they become overused then people will start to get bored and the games will lose their selling power. Nintendo's made fantastic games in many other genres and has many other IPs; they just have to use them. I think it will pay off for them in the long-term.

A price drop would help but it should be so big that it makes no sense anymore to produce the Wii U. So it's an option but it wouldn't make so much sense because casual gamers do not buy so many games and that means Nintendo wouldn't earn any money with the Wii U.

I just think that the "Year of..." advertisement is better than the normal really bad advertisement made by Nintendo or do not advertize in general in a way that the people still don't know things like the Wii U exist.

Of course they could do so many great things and games with their other IP's but Mario is more successfull than Metroid or so and that is the problem but with this philosophy Nintendo loses the fans because I personally don't know if I would buy another Mario-console. I am still waiting for Metroid for Wii U.

People sometimes forget how important the fans are to the success of a brand; the fans essentially help launch the console and promote it. It's basically free advertisement. The GC would not have profited if it weren't for the fans, who bought enough software to put it in the green.