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The Wii U was not engineered for a "10 year product cycle" the way the Xbox 360 and PS3 were. It will struggle, hardware wise, to run the same games that will be developed for the Xbox 3 and PS4, once developers have a handle on taking full advantage of what either platform has to offer.

Now there is always the remote possibility that either the Xbox 3 or the PS4 will be much closer in final specs to the Wii U, making port discrepancy less of an issue, but it seems unlikely either MS or SCE would attempt to sell a new box for about $100 more than the Wii U with roughly equal specs, particularly given the cost of the Game Pad controller when factoring in total per unit cost. This runs the assumption that neither the Xbox 3 nor the PS4 will be shipping every SKU with VR goggles, holographic projectors, etc. or anything that would inflate the per unit production cost.

On the plus side, Nintendo managed to sell the Wii U at $299 and $349 at launch, which will drop for later adopters making the cost less of an initial investment and should lower the bar expectation wise as to how long consumers expect the console to stay current. $300 for a console that's good for 4-5 years before a replacement is announced is not expensive by any measure.