Personally I would prefer a gamepad-less Wii U. I don't think this will happen, but the little white box would be more appealing if it saved its resources for traditional games instead of something *most* gamers don't find necessary.

But this will lead to a fragmented user base and like I said in the other thread, devs probably won't be able to take advantage of the extra horsepower available due to the extra work that entails.

But the very fact that it could be much cheaper is enough imo. Wii U for $150 with a classic controller would be very tempting.

ON TOPIC:

To answer the question of the OP: I have no idea!

Of course not! You can accidentally press the button on the gamepad and porn will appear on the tv in case you have turn on.

I have no idea what Nintendo sees in the Gamepad. They better hope that NFC game takes off so the controller can have some reason for existing.

The people claiming that it's useless are mostly people who don't own a Wii U.

Have you stopped to wonder why it is that a lot of people are clamouring for multi-Gamepad support? Why the idea of a game utilising multiple Gamepads is avidly anticipated? Why people aren't satisfied with one Gamepad and four Pro Controllers?

And the system itself relies on the Gamepad. Games are developed with the expectation that the Gamepad will be there, and thus almost every game in its current library uses it to one degree or another. Some, yes, do nothing more than throw a map on there, or have the menus displayed on there... but that's still something you'd have to patch to fix. And many more do at least something more extensive with it, including almost every popular game on the system. If it's so useless, why is it that the games that *don't* use it well are the ones that struggle most?

EDIT: Also note that, without the Gamepad, the Wii U just becomes a slightly more powerful PS3 or 360 with a smaller library, and thus truly becomes a system just for people to get Nintendo games in HD. With the Gamepad, it has something unique to sell to people other than Nintendo fans. I always find it remarkable that some people think that what Nintendo needs to do to compete is to become less distinguishable from the other two...

I'm beginning to think Nintendo is borderline retarded when it comes to making in-generation adjustments when a console is starting to go south. They're like the Titanic trying to navigate past an iceberg ... completely unable to react. They generally need to fail so hard in a generation and then take a few years to figure out what they did wrong.

They did the same thing with the N64, wasting their time developing the 64DD for years rather than giving the system a real mass storage alternative to cartridges. Only during the next generation did they accept they had to use optical media.

With the GameCube they should've offered an official DVD-playing model that didn't look like a Fisher Price toy, but only had the Panasonic Q which was available in Japan in tiny quantities and nothing else. Instead of getting their feet wet with online play they stubbornly pushed the GBA-GCN link option which was an extremely niche idea that didn't take off at all. 

I'll give Microsoft credit ... at least they are getting feedback from consumers and actually acting on it, they changed a lot of things that people reacted negatively to pre-launch and now are offering consumers the version of the XB1 that many want.

That humbled attitude will I think let MS taste some degree of success this generation if they stick to it. Nintendo is likely going to only taste what it feels like to have a lower selling console than the GameCube this generation.

My opinion is as valid as theirs and yours for that matter!!, and believe it or not there are plenty of others that think the gamepad is a very good controller. Wii U is still the cheapest console on the market, even with the gamepad, but that doesnt stop other people buying a more expensive system with very few games. The gamepad is not Wii Us problem or its price, its perception.

Both.
The Xbox One without Kinect is still a great console with a lot of features and great games.

The Wii U without the Gamepad is just a better version of the Wii. A lot of games wouldn't work, wouldn't be innovative and would just be a little bit better than their Wii versions.

It's a cultural thing. American companies care a lot less about saving face and more about getting results, so while companies are sometimes stubborn about product lines or features that they should have cut due to the ego of some higher executive, they'll usually cut or change what needs cut or changed (and more importantly, are far more willing to oust the ego-driven executive who was resistant to such changes).

Japanese companies, as seen in Sony's case, see their core businesses as a point of pride and feel that abandoning them wholly in the face of setbacks is fundamentally undesirable. Sony can see that in clinging to their TV business, which was the heart and soul of the company at one point and thus dragging their company to the brink of insolvency. Similarly, it's hard to get rid of executives with bad ideas (though they can always be booted upstairs, as happened with Ken Kutaragi or, sadly, Gunpei Yokoi), and more pretense is made on "tweaking" a bad idea rather than scrapping it outright.

The advantage for Japanese companies is that their products tend to come off as more organic and natural, so when they get a product right, they get it *right*. Western successes tend to be blander and focus-tested.

Also, the glorious HD/4K porn is not too glorious on the GamePad!