This is a Forex USD/Yen pair for the last six years as we can see Switzerland frank isn't the only currency hitting sky-high exchange rates against us dollar thanks to briliant lead of our friend Barrack Obama.

With 2 of the 3 console companies located in Japan how will it affect pricing in USA?

Will companies continue taking the bullet and subsidiazing lower profits or loses from USA with profits in EU/Japan ?  Will the next round of pricecuts miss the USA (seems to not be the case for 3DS) ?

Is there a breaking point when it won't be possible to mantain current prices in USA ?

Or is the situation not so bad for them as they have majority of costs in China where they likely signed contracts in USD?

I have no doubt sooner or later they will have to adjust pricing and that won't be good for America. I know I said something similiar when Canada's dollar rose from 89cents American to a 1.04$ American. Nintendo within months adjusted their Canadian prices matching the American prices. So if the Yen continues to climb above the dollar I could see them adjusting prices accordingly.

However they might be able to get away with keeping them the same. America is a much larger market then Japan and what they loose on currency they more then make up for with sales. Also Microsoft won't have that problem with X-Box and if Microsoft keeps their prices the same then Sony and Nintendo will have a hard time competing if they raise their software and hardware costs.

Mainly their option is, raise costs and bite a bullet of lower sales or maintain price and bite the bullet of a less profits. Either way Nintendo and Sony are going to loose due to the economy. It might be best for them to maintain their current prices and deal with the fewer sales then to raise prices and loose customers!

That is why the 3DS in EU will be 159 Euro while in US $169 I guess. (considering normally hardware is the same $ 300 = 300 EURO.) If the Euro now lose terrain that will fuck up Japan.

In Germany and other EU Countries it will be 169 €.

I have been mentioning this for months and have been largely ignored or disagreed with ...

Being that the hardware is determined years before a system is released to market, and even the price is determined months before a system is released, a large portion of Sony and Nintendo's strategy is related to exchange rates. For example, I believe that Nintendo initially priced the 3DS at $250 due to changes in exchange rates and as a hedge against future changes.

Personally, I doubt we will see price increases in any released systems but I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see any price cuts either. Most of the hardware is already profitable, or will see manufacturing costs decrease more rapidly than exchange rate changes, so I doubt they need price increases.

With that said, I wonder what Sony projected the dollar-yen exchange rate to be when they set the price of the PS Vita at $250/$300 ... If Sony projected that they could sell the PS-Vita at that price with an acceptable loss with the dollar being worth (on average over the first 12 months) 80 yen, and before the system launches they project that the dollar will be worth (on average over the first 12 months) 65 yen they may have to change the price or force bundling. After all, that kind of change in exchange rate would translate to a $50+ additional loss for every system sold.

Of course this will also impact the release price of the Wii U and PS4 ...

They could but they will more than likely get lower sales. People don't have all the money in the world to throw around.

Bring US prices up to match EU prices. If we still buy games and console in Europe they will in America.

Oh;..Then it will be a Benelux thing.

Neither Sony nor Nintendo will raise the price of their consoles as people wouldn't accept it. People has learned that "tech things", consoles, TVs, cell phones, etc., lower their price with time. How would you explain that due to changes with the currencies now they will have to pay more?

They won't do price cuts (as HappySqurriel said) and accept the possible losses they may be having now.

Hopefully not!