I've thought the same thing. One thing I did kind of think about though is that even though Nintendo might release something new the Wii U already plays old Wii games so even if they do that I still have a huge back catalog because I never owned a Wii either.

GC was my favorite system of that gen and I owned all 3. It had the greatness of Nintendo's 1st party and a good selection of 3rd party. Exactlly what I want to see in a modern Nintendo Console.

Price cut will save the Wii U. That way it could be a cheap second console for most gamers. It's too hard to justify it at $299 when you can get an XBox One for $349.

No game can save it, the games are already there.What can save it is advertisement. Seriously a good advertisement campaign could boost Wii U sales tremendously.

Zelda. Then nobody will remember of the flopness of Wii U as everyone will be playing this (hopefully) great game.

I would like to think a real home console version of Pokemon with online capabilities to battle others would be the trump card to save Nintendo but could be too late.

Start planning for next gen and reduce the costs. I think they can get decent sales, maybe surpass the GC, but nothing more. They need to figure out where they went wrong the past few years including the final years of the Wii and start from scratch.

Smash and MK will help it maintain a better baseline though and that's a good start. They should release games, try new IP's, and maintain the current audience's satisfaction for now as I think they're the Nintendo loyal fanbase and you'd want to keep them.

On the point if it needs "saving", can be "saved" let alone the fact what can "save" it I have the following opinion:

Nintendo has a hardcore following. Sooner or later this base of fans will get it to play those Nintendo games. With these sales it will hover around 20 M lifetime I think. These are "bad sales" in the eyes of many but for a company like Nintendo, being Nintendo and delivering the Nintendo games I think they can be at peace. Sure they hoped to repeat the success of the Wii but as with any "innovation" it will only be seen as an innovation if it turns out to be a hit or hype. You can see that with Apple, Samsung, Tesla and many more companies. They take a gamble and the scale tips either in their favor or against it. Nintendo will survive for many years to come and won't stop making hardware within the current climate. They'll try again and again to repeat history and catch lightning in a bottle the next time. As Gamestop put it: "Don't bet against Nintendo." If you're under the illusion that Nintendo is doing nothing about it, that's kind of the Japanese way. Keep stuff internal. Don't tell the outside what's happening behind the scenes too much. It's rooted in the Japanese way of life of tradition and confidence. They want to make it look like it's business as usual and don't get you upset but behind the curtain everyone is hard at work to deliver and make it seem like the change came gradually and easy. So about the question if it needs to be "saved" my response is No. They'll take their defeat and move on.

Now let's address if it can be "saved". This may be a weird question in the light I just painted but lets approach this from the view of the public instead of from the view of Nintendo. Perception is King in the view of the public. Perception dominates what the public thinks about your hardware and how they feel about it in general. I think this can be changed a lot. Still many people think the console has no games. While that was true in the beginning this statement is in my opinion obsolete. Enough good games are here, almost all are exclusive and more have been announced or are even coming soon. Enough to render this a moot point. Maybe not as a primary console but certainly as a secondary. I myself would put it next to a PC and have a very complete gaming experience. Owning it is in my opinion justifiable enough. What lacks is a positive feedback loop. People playing it, enjoying it and telling the world they also need this. Youtubers and press painting a more positive story on what the console has and does. Not constant bickering about what it can't and has not. And last sensible commercials and advertising. Nintendo advertising is sporadic over here and if I can believe many other its the same where they live.'

No amount of redesign, price lowering, gifts, gamepad removal or even games will get people into a buzz as much as positive sounds surrounding it. The iPhone didn't become popular because of what it did right but because the right people talked about it and showed it off, telling people they wanted to have it in their life. You need people, press and social media to create this buzz. How to create that on the other hand...that's a story on itself.

Several reasons:

1.) It looked like a kids toy (something they rectified with the Wii which looked like an Apple product). This negated things like the Resident Evil exclusivity because it got labelled as the "kiddie console" by a large portion of the public. 

2.) While $99 was cheap, the PS2 and XBox were pretty cheap too ($150 by then) and played DVDs on top of that. I think people saw that as a better value proposition and the PS2 in general was seen as having the more desirable library.

3.) The Nintendo IPs weren't the ones people wanted. Mario Sunshine was no Mario 64. Zelda: Wind Waker had the cell shading controversey and wasn't Ocarina of Time 2 like a lot of people were expecting. Mario Kart: DD even played around with the formula a bit too much. DK was turned into a rhythm style game. Metroid Prime was no GoldenEye type multiplayer hit. 

4.) They gave Sony way too long of a head start. 18 months in Japan and more than one year in US/Europe, Sony basically sealed up the generation before Nintendo really could get going. 

5.) They lost the FPS/college dorm crowd that GoldenEye/Perfect Dark had attracted to MS and Halo and had nothing but Geist to replace it with (big mistake). 

Honestly now.... with Hyrule, Bayonetta, Smask coming, Kart 8 still going... I like what nintendo is doing with the wii u and f this is because the wii u is struggling... then... i might like the struggle.