Why the Wii U is NOT Nintendo's most expensive console.

[sidmeiernintifan]

The bad thing about the Wii U is not so much its price, but that never before so much of the price of a Nintendo console was made of the controller.
Nintendo could be selling a much cheaper console, more powerful, and making a profit on every console sold.

according to cnn this is how expensive it was last year to manufacture the console

Wii U GamePad

Touch screen: $24.75
Main electronic components: $30
Battery, wifi chip, plastic casing: $24.50
TOTAL: $79.25

Wii U Console

Processor: $40.00
Optical drive: $17.00
Flash storage: $6.00
RAM: $6.00
Wifi chip, Bluetooth, plastic casing, other components: $79.38
TOTAL: $148.38

GRAND TOTAL: $227.63

http://www.gengame.net/2013/03/cnn-estimates-the-cost-of-manufacturing-wii-u-to-be-about-228/ it also explains why they are losing money (research and development, packaging, distribution, retail etc)

The controller is pretty much one third of the cost.