Custom displays aren't cheap at all, and Nintendo is said to be pursuing a very high quality screen in terms of viewing angles, brightness, and of course it has to have solid durability and power efficiency, which varies wildly from terrible to great. Batteries that can supply the kind of power draw from this kind of system with a screen for a rumored 6-hour runtime also may be stretching it.
We'll have a BoM breakdown soon hopefully after the reveal.
Nintendo is not run by idiots of course. Don't you think they knew that they could have sold a TON more WiiUs if they had been able to hit something like $199 or less sooner? But they never did. Because they dominate the software sales for their home consoles by a landslide, and they don't have to pay licensing costs to themselves, the profits from game sales are a big deal to them. If they had been able to get an extra 10-20M WiiU's sold, they would have really made a ton more money from the 8th gen home console market. The probable cause, the only one that even makes sense, is that they simply couldn't get the BoM costs low enough to make it happen. Previous gens they had no problem getting costs lower over time, often substantially so.
Even if it's $50 difference, that's something. And something like a $79 or $99 difference is big. It's not about being a 'cheap ass', it's about maximizing the potential sales and not wasting opportunities. I won't spend more than $200 for something that I will never use in mobile form, and for which I'd be lucky to find 3 games I want to buy over its entire lifespan.
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