Hmm might be. Makes sense though, the main production cost cuts were made a while ago. I don't know about the 360 but I could see a new PS3 model using the smallest Cell processor chips to reduce costs as we move to next gen. All current gen consoles need to go under $200 soon.

It will be interesting to see how this early report stacks up against the official iSuppli teardown and BoM estimate once they have a retail unit to analyze.

If correct, then it will have fallen in line with what I assumed would be the case. Nintendo won't sell a $399 console. Nintendo also won't take a loss on any hardware they sell (previously established). The Wii U controller would not be an excessively expensive component, in direct contrast to what quite a few naysayers claimed without even making an attempt to break down the cost of components that would go into such a controller. Probably because they were comparing the controller to a tablet PC, which the Wii U controller is most certainly not.

If I remember correctly, I said it would probably cost under $100 to manufacture, and that was on the conservative side, not even taking into account contract discounts with parts suppliers, bulk purchase rates, etc.

Plus, $299 seems to be the price at which the vast majority of consumers are willing to pay for the Wii U. Nintendo won't make the same mistake they made with the 3DS by overestimating consumer demand relative to what they would be willing to pay.

Based on the early reports, the bulk of the components from the CPU and GPU, no internal HDD, proprietary media format (no DVD or BD playback/licensing costs), etc. I was of the belief that NIntendo could pull off selling the Wii U for about $300 while still making a small profit on each unit sold. That's their proven speciality when it comes to hardware.

As for the 3DS, even at $169, the initial BoM was slightly over $100. I'm sure it's under $100 by now.

I suspect the reception to the Wii U at retail would be similar to that of the 3DS at $249 if Nintendo were to price it at $399.

sounds about right

300 sounds good

I doubt the 3DS costs have shrank at all this early, are they still using the original model? They are probably working on ways to reduce costs right now though and if they do redesign it all of the cost saving measures will be implemented then.

I'm going with my original thought last E3, that it would cost $350.

I never quite understood why people thought it would cost a lot in the first place anyway. The U Pad seems to be essentially a DSiXL, but with the CPU and GPU stripped out (but with things like microphone and camera still in there, and a few other bits to bring cost up, but only one resistive touch screen)

If DSiXL is only so inexpensive, U Pad should be even less so.

I would take these rumours with a gigantic grain of salt ...

Personally, I expect the physical manufacturing cost to be somewhere in the $200 range primarily because Nintendo would have paid for a substantial amount of the licensing up front; but I'm not convinced that this rumour is based on anything other than pure speculation.

The PS3 and 360's costs may not be as high as you think. The Wii U is stronger, but the PS3 has a lot of smaller things that the Wii U won't have that likely drive up the costss (Blu-Ray/DVD on top of many other things). The 360 on the other hand, has Kinect, which will drive up the overall production cost. Also, Sony and MS are both making profits on their consoles, so there has to be a bit of markup involved as well. 

The WiiU controller is little more than a standard controller with a touch screen. Unless they were to add some extra expensive feature (haptic tech, etc), it's delusional to assume it will retail for $100 or more.

Kinect cots $56 to manufacture, retails for $150.

the rumor says the Wii U talbet costs about the same to manufacture so lets say $50. Expect Nintendo to make AT LEAST a $50 profit by selling for $100.

I have to disagree internal memory is going to be a must what kind of memory is unclear but it will need some serious memory 120-gig likely at worst unless Nintendo releases two models.. Nintendo is putting a massive emphasis on its online system. We know full retail titles will be available online. We know that MMO's will probably be playable and that requires a massive amount of memory. We of course know downloadable titles will also be big. F2P games requiring tons of DLC.

All those features will require a ton of memory which mean at least 120-gig Nintendo will likely need additional memory I know it has been rumored that we will be able to use external hard drives. I suspect Nintendo has a hard drive.

As for it being cheaper then PS3 the cell processors in the PS3 are ridiculously expensive compared to power PC. The 3DS is also cheaper room manufacture. Guys manufacturing costs drop drastically within a year PS3 became profitable after three years even after receiving a price cut. I doubt if manufacturing cost is 180$ that Nintendo will charge 350$ last generation the 400$+ consoles did pretty poorly compared to Nintendo. After 3DS Nintendo knows it cant sell the console to expensive I fully expect a 299$ retail price if the manufacturing Turing cost is correct. I thought WiiU would cost 350-400$ and the manufacturing cost around 300+$. Their is no way Nintendo will risk a price cut again if the hardware is not powerful enough to justify a 350$ price tag Nintendo will likely suffer some sales issues!