No, that is an irrelevant point I glossed over. Power of the system has nothing to do with comparative prices between Japan and USA. DSi launched at over $40 below the exchange rate. History is the only relevant factor as increased exchange rates has never factored in before. Why should it now?

Yeah $300 is too much for me, but it could still be $250 in the US. Hopefully it is, that would be much more reasonable. I'm going to be selling my DS and some games anyway to put towards my 3DS, so I guess $300 wouldn't be too bad either.

Man some of you guys are crazy.

This thing ganna ganna be a beast. Have you seen the game play videos?....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dh8tu0mrEk

Some of those games look sick, SFIV and MGS.

Quality costs $. The 3ds is ganna be crazy good. And it was never ganna be $199. If you can't afford that then that does suck, but i will get it for sure, if I can find it.

This is all good for me though, maybe now ill be able to get it day 1.

Honestly, this price tag and the 3DS's technology makes a lot of sense.

Both the DS and the Wii have shown that enticing innovations in hardware/software are more important than the price of the system (provided the price isn't downright prohibitive), and this is why the sales trends of both devices have correlated primarily with the release of new software (Nintendogs, Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Mario Kart) as opposed to initial pricing and subsequent price drops.

I think Nintendo view both devices, particularly the Wii, as a missed opportunity of sorts, as in both cases they could've increased the hardware power, base capabilities, and price of the devices just a little, enabling them to capture the coveted blue market while also eating into their competitors' markets.

I imagine that had Nintendo originally launched a Wii that was roughly equal to or slightly less powerful than the 360, breaking even at around $299 (as opposed to making a nice profit at $249), the Wii would've captured both the casual and a good chunk of the hardcore markets, and it would indeed be the ps2 of this generation.

The fact that the 3DS is a mix of both Nintendo's unique gaming flavor and cutting edge technology shows they probably think this as well.  They are trying to make a DS plus PSP plus more (fix the damn plus signs!), directly aiming at what little of the handheld market Sony still has.

Sony at least has some reason to be happy, though.  A $249 price tag makes it much easier for them to price the PSP2 competitively against the 3DS.  Of course, assuming it doesn't include a 3D screen (which I don't think it will), they'd have to price themselves at or below $249.  It'd be nigh impossible to justify a higher price to consumers when you lack such an notable feature compared to the competition, no matter what else you may have to brag about.

Word is PSP2 devkits have been making the rounds these past few months, with first party studios having kits as far back as a year ago.  Supposedly the system is quite far along, and the reason Sony hasn't made any announcements yet is because they've been waiting for Nintendo to announce 3DS launch details.  I believe this is true, and I think the price in particular is what they were waiting on.  Well now they have it, so I guess we'll see how they'll react soon.

@makingmusic  everything you said makes sense, i dont understand how people could have honestly thought it would cost 200 or less. There was no way that would have been possible not with all the stuff they were saying 3DS could do. As for PSP i consider myself to be in that very small handheld market, the PSP just provides with the games i rather play. I have DS but its not my cup of tea.  As a SOny fan, i gotta say they need to do something amazing because the 3DS is looking better than anything Ninty has does in some time

RE: PSP2, yep. I agree and bet that unless they've decided that the price for the 3DS screwed their non3D PSP2, they'll announce it formally soon. However, they may decide that it isn't competitive enough and hold it back to add a 3D screen if relatively easy without a big change to the system and the already released dev kits.

Kind of like how they quickly added some motion to their PS3 controller after Wiimote was detailed.

Didn't TGS end like a week ago?  0_o

Weeeell..... A $249.99 price for the 3DS would be sweet if it included Ocarina of time 3D/Starfox N64 3D bundled....

Or both, that would be just perfect.

$299 for the world's first glasses-free 3D device (outside Japan at least) I think would fly fine, at least for the first 6 months.

We're living in an age where Iphones launched at $600 and so did PS3's, so $300 wouldn't be a huge sticker shock.

However it's far from mainstream pricing for a handheld but glasses free 3D will get techies to buy and the incredible line up of games should get a lot of core gamers & Nintendo faithful to buy at that price.   

After 6 months they could drop it to $250.

However, I suspect they'll launch at $250 anyway.

oh, I didn't know the dates. I thouht this was the beginning of it. :(

Well, just remove the TGS part and make it more of 'soon'. :)