I just wanted to expand upon the possible price of the Wii U ...
From the tiny amount we know about the Wii U and the rumors/speculation about its hardware I get the impression that Nintendo took a similar approach to developing the Wii U's hardware that they took with the Gamecube over a decade ago. Essentially, rather than using expensive state of the art hardware to maximize theoritical performance, use custom versions of "outdated" hardware and focus on maximizing real-world performance per dollar.
With this in mind, had the Wii U been using a conventional controller (like the XBox 360 or PS3 controller) I would expect Nintendo to sell the system for $300 while breaking even or turning a modest profit.
If I am correct the price increase of the Wii U will be primarily driven by how much more it costs to manufacture a Wii U tablet controller than a conventional controller. Being that I think it is far closer to a conventional controller with a (relatively) inexpensive touch screen added than a tablet, I think people are over-estimating the cost to manufacture the controller. My expectation is that it (probably) adds $10 to $15 to the manufacturing cost of a controller, and Nintendo is worried about the cost at retail because it would (probably) increase controller prices by $30 to $45 if Nintendo and the retailers are going to maintain their margins on accessories.
With everything considered, I expect Nintendo is targeting $349 for the Wii U at launch. While I think that they may be more willing to accept small losses on hardware now due to the launch of the 3DS, I wouldn't be surprised if they are worried that factors outside of their control will force them to release it at a higher price.
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