Should Nintendo produce a digital-only Wii U?

[fleischr]

sundin13 said:

The gain from removing the disc drive would be overwritten by the need to increase the hard drive space (in fact, cost may actually increase)...You are proposing this idea for 200$ but that would just make Nintendo lose a ridiculous amount on each console.

All the questions in the OP are also valid concerns that make me think "why would this be a good idea?". You listed a few reasons (or rebuttals) as to why it isn't a bad idea but why is it a good idea? I can't think of anything

EDIT: I see you are talking about increasing gain from software sales...but that is sort of silly. The people who would buy this model are the same people who would buy digital anyways on a normal Wii U...its not like the Wii U doesn't offer digital sales of retail games already

The implicit goal here is to make digital the primary sales channel for games rather than a secondary one. Obviously, with a lower price, you can build a substantially larger userbase. If you can double the userbase, increase revenues 5-20% per game amongst the newly brought in userbase, that creates a far more favorable business model.

You can count on storage becoming cheaper, offsetting losses of manufactured units in the future.