Agreed. Not having a $300 Wii U bundle with LEGO City was a miss. For sure. ZombiU bundle has had a negligible impact on hardware sales.
I think it's best they keep Iwata for now. If he falls short of the $1 billion profit next January (which I think is unlikely), then he should be replaced. I mean, it will have been Nintendo's third year in a row of missing forecasts if they can't achieve their goal this coming year. This year will either prove Nintendo's business model is still viable, or it will prove that things need to change.
Iwata has said ten first-party 3DS games are releasing this year. A high mark, for sure. But this signals that he knows it is make or break. If you can't achieve decent profitability with ten big releases on a two year-old platform then you will have to admit that the business model no longer makes sense. Ditto for Wii U. If 3D Mario, Wind Waker, and Mario Kart fail to turn Wii U into at least a modest success come the holiday season, then clearly there is no longer any sense in the business model.
I happen to think they'll reach their profit target and maybe even exceed it. Pokemon X/Y and all of their upcoming Wii U games should turn both of their systems into money printers, provided they don't make a price cut on the Wii U just as a short-term fix. It would destroy any hope of profitability. They can't simply rely on the 3DS half of their business to carry the weight of the entire company. Both system's ecosystems need to be healthy. If they make it through this year, then I think they'll be fine.
It's the same situation I've seen Nintendo in many times before. With the 3DS selling well and set to have an amazing year, stabilize, and have solid 3rd party support for years to come, should Nintendo:
continue to focus on 3DS and make bank
or
shift most (70% or so) developers to Wii U to make it a more popular, viable platform
It's short term vs long term, and in the past I think Nintendo has leaned too heavily towards short term gains over long term success.
Nintendo has a LOT of flexibility with the Wii U pricing. As I said before, I don't see any SKUs retailing for less than $300 this year. They can reformat the Standard/Deluxe models, offer various bundles, provide incentives, have sales (like Vita over the holiday in NA). They have a lot of options and should be in no hurry to officially lower the price. That being said, no one saw the $80 price cut coming to 3DS, so I wouldn't rule anything out.
2 weeks ago so many were saying Vita would be back at its previous baseline of <10k by now.
I can only speak for myself, but it may hold true for others as well. 1) I never expected it to be back to sub 10k at this point and 2) ignorance. I had no idea One Piece was releasing last week, nor am I familiar with the series.