This... isn't true at all.  Wii piqued some curiosity from the mainstream press pre-launch, but industry wide it was predicted to be a (distant) 3rd place boutique console, and largely irrelevant.  GameCube very much had way, way more industry hype upfront, especially with it's impressive Spaceworld 2000 tech demos, optical media and much was made of Nintendo evidently repairing a lot of lost 3rd party relationships from the N64 debacle.  Wii and GC were almost polar opposites, GC was predicted to be a decent success and actual contender against PS2, yet it failed spectacularly in the market; Wii was considered to be a trivial oddity at best, yet it totally dominated in sales and brought gaming even more mainstream.

You are missing the point that it doesn't matter what Nintendo prices their system at. It doesn't matter if it's the most expensive Nintendo system to date.  None of that matters.   What matters in the eyes of the consumer is how does it stack up to the competition.   In the consumers eyes, the Wii was a much cheaper system than either of the outputs the competition was offering. 

By offering such a low entry point and drastically different control scheme,  Nintendo got a lot of people (A lot more than MS or Sony) to bite on the Wii system.  Once they had this massive amount of people, they started over dosing them with quality Nintendo software. The thing is,   Nintendo had great software on the Gamecube and N64 too.  It's just a myriad of reasons limited them from reaching a full audience and therefore their games didn't receive the credit they deserved.   

Let's fast forward 300 years from now.  Sony / MS / Nintendo all still exist and are the three largest  Video game console producing companies.  In the year 2310,  Nintendo prices their console at a whopping $250,000.   Highest priced Nintendo console to date.   Is that even relevant?  No.  If Sony comes in with a console priced $600,000 and MS comes in with a console priced at $400,000 the Nintendo output will still be considered a far cheaper option.

This isn't the year 2000 anymore.  Had people wanted to purchase a PS2, they certainly could have for what $150? $120 at the time?   The fact of the matter is, if you wanted a next-gen HD console you wanted a hard-drive on a system that essentially requires it to utilize a lot of basic features.  You probably wanted a wireless controller (Which every other system had) and most likely you cared (Atleast on a passing sense) about HD (Which you were going to need to eventually buy cords for anyways.).

And we aren't speaking about the Arcade .  We are talking about the Core.   By the time the Arcade unit (Which included some modern amenities) was announced the Wii had already had around a 6 million console sale lead over the almost 2 year old 360 and almost year old PS3. 

Rpruett, you still fail to grasp the necessity of the tinity for the Wii's success.  I can't believe you are so tied up on suspecting two of the 3 pillars to warrant the historical sales records the Wii attained.

While hype of a new interface may have generatd some pre-launch excitement, what do you think kept that excitement going?  Software, you fool. 

Do you honestly believe the system would have sold as it did had not the relevant gesture based software accompanied the Wii on that journey?   It's like assuming you'll win the Grand Prix without fuel.  Don't worry about, you've got a cheap, light weight car and a fancy driving input system...who needs fuel?   The drama of it all would certainly generate pre-race interest but winning the race, indeed completing the first lap of many to come would be a labor never to happen without the much needed fuel.

Software perpetuates the interest.  It is the fuel that allows the Wii owner to actually drive their new fancy Wii around the virtual racetrack.  And at 6.9 games per gamer, it gets pretty good fuel mileage.

It was a lot more than 'mainstream' press.  It was actual consumers interested in MOTION controls.  Even before touching a game, they were interested in motion controls.  And at a low entry point it made it possible for everyone to try them.

See 2006 E3 lines : 

Wii was a hit with people from the very mention of it.  Despite the criticism from publishers and tech heads. 

I never said software wasn't important to the Wii's success.  It has been.  It just had a lot less to do with the initial sales of that console than pricing/motion.  It took a backseat to Price and  Motion Controls when the system released. Ofcourse Software kept the excitement going.  (Had you been reading what I wrote, you would understand I don't disagree software is important and that price matters less and less as the generation continues onward).

If consumers wanted a Wii at first because it was $250 relative to a $300 HD console, why were they often going for $400-plus used on eBay or through Craigslist?   Why did it take FOUR YEARS for Nintendo to finally drop the price (and by a measly 20% at that, PS2's first price drop was 2 years in and 33%).  Does that say "low entry point" to you?  Your whole price argument is fundamentally unfounded, and I see you've still yet to bring any evidence to support it... again it's 'Wii was cheaper and soldmore, hence it sold more because it was cheaper'.  If you want me to take that leap with you, you'll need to actually bring some substantial reasoning and contextual support to the table with it for a change. 

What you don't seem to get is that consumers wanted Wii because of what they could play on it, millions bought it literally for Wii Sports alone.  Worse, I can shoot down your "quality games on GC/N64" argument by also stating "low entry point for GC/N64"... why's it only work one way and not the other?  Wii was more expensive than GC/N64, and price barrier between it and competitors' launch prices were greater on GC/N64... yet I don't seem to really remember anything on N64 or GC much like Wii Sports...

And in 2005, how many competitor's next gen consoles came with standard HDDs, HDMI cables or wireless controllers?  What "industry standard" is the Core being measured against exactly, one that cemented a year or more later?

E3 isn't consumers, it's press and retail.  The show isn't even open to the public.

The $250 pricepoint was derided throughout the industry.  It literally wasn't until the system had been selling out for months that we started to see press/publishers/analysts/etc change their tunes, and even then it was still usually downplayed as a 'fad' (with an implied or stated HD resurgence assured).  Hell, even today we still have that from most of the industry.

If consumers wanted a Wii at first because it was $250 relative to a $300 HD console, why were they often going for $400-plus used on eBay or through Craigslist?   Why did it take FOUR YEARS for Nintendo to finally drop the price (and by a measly 20% at that, PS2's first price drop was 2 years in and 33%).

As I mentioned above, the $300 Core Xbox 360 was not a worthy purchase.  The 360  Arcade (Released 2 years after the 360 came out) actually featured enough to legitimately enjoy your system without buying a ton of extra accessories.

How many consoles were sold over Ebay / Craigslist for $400?  I don't have those figures do you?  Why did PS2 sell for 800-900$ before it even released?  Who knows.  Why did Tickle Me Elmo get sold out across the country and have people murdering each other for one?  Nobody knows.  Someone will always pay a price for something.

It took Nintendo four years to drop the price because of two reasons :  

A.)  Momentum.  When you have doubled the sales of 360/PS3 within only 1 year on the market, and you double them on your 2nd year on the market and possibly even the third year on the market?   Guess what?  You have the pricing control now. You don't **NEED** to drop the price of your system. Your system is what people ' want' because all of their friends have it, their kids have it, etc etc.   If you DON'T have it, you're missing out.    Pricing matters less and less as the generation wears on.   As all systems eventually sit near each other.

B.)  Competitions High Price Point.    As I mentioned earlier, the competition's standard fully functional models ($600/$400) respectively were a combined $500 more expensive than an entry level Wii.  Even taking the absolute barebones (Discontinued SKU's from MS / Sony)  ($300/$500) respectively you are looking at a combined $300 more expensive than a Wii.   It took the competition four years to get within a reasonable range of the Wii's price.

What you don't seem to get is that consumers wanted Wii because of what they could play on it, millions bought it literally for Wii Sports alone.  Worse, I can shoot down your "quality games on GC/N64" argument by also stating "low entry point for GC/N64"... why's it only work one way and not the other?  Wii was more expensive than GC/N64, and price barrier between it and competitors' launch prices were greater on GC/N64... yet I don't seem to really remember anything on N64 or GC much like Wii Sports...

What?  Are you confused?   Gamecube launched at $200?  PS2 launched at $300 ?  Xbox launched at $300.  A combined difference of only $200 in pricing.  ((300-200 = 100)   (300-200 = 100) = 200).  The difference this generation ((500-250 = 250) (300-250 = 50) =  $300) That is still even taking the barest of barebones consoles from MS/Sony (When you take full-fledged models that number becomes drastically more skewed.)   ((600-250 = 350) (400-250 = 150) =$ 500)

It's not about the individual consoles price.  It's about the CONTEXT in which the consoles price exists.  These things don't occurr in a vacumn.  GC may have been cheaper but relative to it's competition it absolutely was not.

One more factor to take note of, is Sony was the top dog in this generation.  By them releasing a significantly more expensive console (Twice as much as the Wii even with the discontinued barebones SKU) they completely shifted consumer attitude.    MS wasn't nearly as established as Nintendo or Sony. 

If I remember correctly, that E3 was open to the public. But the price wasn't mentioned until months later. Motion controls obviously made people interested, after Nintendo's press conference the interest grew exponentially, but it was the games (Wii Sports mainly) that sold the system. Had Nintendo made a "third party shovelware title" instead of Wii Sports, the momentum the Wii was getting would had died immediately.

What you personally deem 'worthy of purchase' has little bearing on the actual market.  If that were at all remotely the case, I suspect the Wii would've been an utter flop. ;)

Joe schmoe could by a 360 for $300 in 2005 and have fun with it.  He'd need a memory card to save game data (there's another $20-40), but that's no different than literally every other console on the market at that time (besides Xbox 1).  Something tells me VGA cables and wired controllers worked fine then too (both also industry standard), hell Wii and PS3 still come with VGA cables in every SKU afaik.

And despite how you might want to discount the Core, it still existed and was still only $50 more than a Wii.  GameCube most certainly had a greater entry point price gap ($100) and that was actually key it's marketing (as it was for Dreamcast).  All this is really beside the point though, since you still seem unable to bring up any shred of concrete evidence that pricepoint was a driver here.  You can keep reiterating the same unfounded logical fallacy if you like, but until you can do more than argue in a circle, I think we're done here.