| DrZoidberg said: $250 would be an excellent starting price. i originally thought $350 would be it but now i'm thinking $299, Nintendo wants to keep it affordable and beyond the controller it doesn't seem like the system is that expensive? |
The only issue at $250 would be Nintendo protecting its famous margins on hardware. That's only if I'm grossly overestimating the potential production cost per unit.
It's a given they won't sell at a loss; that's just not how they do business. It seems just as unlikely that they'd be willing to sell at more or less even costs.
While Nintendo hasn't released specifics on the console as they never really do, based upon available information, it does appear that most, if not all key components are mature, meaning modified/customized versions of good hardware from at least 2-3 years ago (the CPU and GPU in particular). That would make a $299 price doable without taking losses and potentially even making a small profit on each. Nothing like the 3DS of course, but I do believe it's not a huge engineering feat to design a console capable of 1920x1080 native render at reasonable frame rates (30-60fps) for just under $300.
I'll just say that if the Wii U is priced at $299 with additional controllers priced at $80, I'll be entirely unsurprised.
