"Weaker" doesn't necessarily mean cheaper.
The Wii U is expensive because Nintendo insisted on a highly proprietary chipset with extremely low electricity restraints that require a lot of R&D and customization and work from AMD. Because it's a very propietary component, it means Nitnendo is likely the only vendor AMD has using that type of chip, so Nintendo has to pay more for it.
One wonders how much better a system like this, which could probably easily be sold for $199.99 today, would sell
- 800 GFLOP 28nm GPU (AMD); mostly off the shelf component, tailored for video games and lower consumption
- Cheapo quad-core IBM CPU
- 4GB DDR3 RAM + 32MB eDRAM
- New Wiimote w/depth sensing.
- $250 launch price; $199.99 by fall 2013.
PS4 is "cheap" at $399.99, but being able to play GTAV in 1080p or fairly reasonable next-gen-ey looking versions of Watch Dogs and COD and Destiny for a full $200 cheaper (I think Nintendo would get a lot of support with a more PC like architecture too as it's far less hoops for a developer to jump through) than a PS4 ... I think a lot of people would opt to go Nintendo.
XB1 at $499.99 would be laughably overpriced by comparision (dat $200 Kinect).
