well, its nintendo, im suprised they included a cable after the bullshit they made with the 3ds without a powersupply...

I realise were talking very little, but everything adds up and the less there packing in and the smaller they can make things the less it will cost them in packaging and distribution as well it all adds up. 

Drop Sensor Bar, 2 USB ports, Cradle, NFC, Front facing Camera, one of the speakers, TV button maybe even reduce the size of the pad and get cheaper screens. 

Just get the console down to an impulse buy price.

Cutting cost and lowering the Wii U's price will barely increase sales,

When the Wii U 8GB w/ Skylander bundle was $199 they weren't exactly flying off the shelves and usually in the land of NA lower price usually wins the customers regardless of what's in the box. (And the Wii U still has all its bells and whistles without cutting anything out aside from storage but that's cheap to upgrade/add on)

IMO, There's nothing Nintendo can do, they'll just have to suck it up and wait til next gen. Hopefully they'll be smart and name their next console something completely different. Wii U just sounds like an upgraded Wii.

I agree with your first three points but after that I disagree. They should keep all of those items in the deluxe edition, I hardly doubt it costs the that much anyway. Maybe $1.50 tops.

It'd be cheaper sure, but with all those things out I'm not sure I would want it. No front facing camera would mean no video chatting with friends, one speaker would mean you better hope you live in a VERY quite house (I got a 5 month old), TV button lets me control all my media devices in the living room with the gamepad, 2 usbs you are going to need if you have an external and a pro controller. That only leaves the cradle, nfc, and sensor bar. And Iwill eventually be getting an Amiibo (which add content to games). You just basically take everything that makes life convenient out of the Wii U for (maybe) more sales. 

This.

Even when the Gamecube dropped it's price to something crazy(either $199US or even $99US, i cant remember which), it still did not have a huge resurgence and the GCN had a more appealing game library 2 years into it's life than the Wii U does and more 3rd party support. Dropping the gamepad and/or dropping the price won't give the Wii U an Xbox 1/PS3 style comeback, the mainstream/casual gamers simply are not interested in the games available and the casual gamers who were into the Wii migrated to smart phones or PS4/X1 for COD/battlefield/Watch Dogs/Halo/Forza/Destiny/Assassin's Creed/FIFA etc. Many people are simply turned off by the overly-cute Nintendo games also, this was a major complaint during the N64 era where the PSX was absolutely destroying the N64 in terms of unit sales and 3rd party support simply because Sony catered for a mature market. It didn't matter how good the games were, alot of people simply relate to a game encompassed in realism.

Cutting camera, NFC and other things would be stupid. The TV-button, well, how much does it cost? IR-sensor is in the Gamepad anyway.
Going with a 5"-5,6" touchscreen (yes, smaller, resolution isnt that great so it would actually look better), better ergonomics and some price cutting at the same time.

Replace Gamepad charger with USB-loadingcable. That recharger sure is mor expensive than cradles, HDMI-cable, sensorbar and some other small things together.

Die shrink and mainboard redesign, reducing cost for the chips, reducing power consumption, thus cooling might be a little cheaper and the PSU could be smaller and cheaper as well.

It would be the wrong way to through important features overboard. And the USB ports are actually needed. But

there might be a few bucks to be saved with smaller powerbrick and recharger replaced with USB cable, a redisgned, maybe smaller Gamepad could save a lot and the die shrink would definitely save money.

Think about 20nm CPU and GPU, possibly on one die instead of the expensive package they have right now. That would save money. Much more than getting rid of a little bit of plastic.

And that is not only for making Wii U cheaper. Nintendo could as well go and make more money on sold hardware.

Yes.

It's not just the direct cost  of the materials. It's also savings attributed lower inventory levels and expedited packing process for each unit shipped.

Looks like a lot of trouble to remove a lot of things far more wanted than the least wanted accesssory of all:  The Tablet.