Soundwave on 24 October 2012
I suspect one reason why the Wii U costs so much is Nintendo's insistence on such a small casing and low power draw.
Probably requires a lot of customization and specific speciality parts. My guess is most of their R&D is actually spent on making sure the console is small too, lol. I hope it's worth it to them.
They likely could have had a more powerful console for the same price if they were willing to compromise on that or embrace a model whereby they release smaller/more power efficient models over time.
