Yes, cyberninja, that is what red ink means. In business black numbers mean gains and red numbers mean losses.
That aside, I'm expecting $250, possibly $300. We know it will be relatively similar to the 360/PS3, but not how much more powerful it is. So lets compare, theoretically, what's going on inside each box. 360 was always cheaper than the ps3, even when it released earlier. Why? No cell and no blu-ray. Are these things still a bit pricey? Yeah, actually. The cell's multiple processors are not as price-efficient as a single multi-core processor, and they are also used in far fewer devices than power pc chips. Off the bat, Nintendo has the potential to have a cheaper CPU than the PS3 while still being more powerful.
Now, it's probable that they will have a more powerful GPU as well. Except, the old HD consoles are using GDDR3. GDDR5 has a higher price to performance ratio, and is relatively close in actual manufacturing cost. They could use the same amount of memory and get much better results and it may not even cost them a penny extra. Since there is a tendency for shared memory in consoles, that means that means all system memory can be expected to perform much better than the competition's, and the real cost here for them is that there will be more of it.
Now at this point a lot of your are probably thinking "okay, so it won't be much more costly to make the console, but what about that expensive controller?" Well, I say look at those expensive HDDs in the PS3 and 360 elite, and look at how much cheaper an 360 arcade unit is with its internal flash memory. $100 cheaper. So without an internal HDD, people should be looking at the WiiU price as starting at the arcade and working up from there. Are the added parts and the controller going to come up to $100 in value at retail? Maybe. Will it be significantly higher? No.
From what I've seen, people are overestimating the cost of the controller and failing to see that new hardware is inherently better, but not inherently more expensive. They are also neglecting to consider the fact that Sony and MS don't have any incentive to lower their price before the other one does because they dug such big holes at the beginning of the generation. Not a problem for Nintendo, who still has fat stacks of DS and Wii cash.
You do not have the right to never be offended.
