No way. I say 299, max.

I think Nintendo are probably going to price this higher than their previous consoles. Adjusted for inflation for comparison with today's market Nintendo's console launch prices in the USA were:
NES (1985) - $242 *($99)
SNES (1991) - $396 *($199)
N64 (1996) - $333 *($199)
NGC (2001) - $281 *($199)
Wii (2006) - $296 *($249)

As you can see from the case of the SNES, Nintendo has launched a successful, market-leading console at, essentially, a $400 price point. By contrast the NGC launched at a full €100 lower than the Xbox and PlayStation 2, which launched at $299 each, but finished in last place. It's not price, but perceived value for money that drives buyers to purchase a product in my opinion. Therefore I think Nintendo could launch their console at $450, providing they had a good launch line-up of quality games.

*Original USA launch prices.
** Long term USA inflation figure of 3.5% used for calculations.

Exactly. It hedges your bets on pre-orders, since there's next to no chance Nintendo will actually sell it for that much or more (and if it were more, the store might be required to honor the original pre-order price, so you can't take a more rational guess for fear it might be wrong)

Which it pretty much will. Look at all the upcoming PS360 multiplatforms that are also planned for the Wii U like Aliens Colonial Marines. Yes, it might be able to do 1080p instead of 720p and thus perhaps have a twice as powerful GPU as the PS360 but by 2012 even that kind of GPU will be old and very cheap tech.

How I am thinking to myself: Okay, the hardware is relatively stronger than the original Wii which would mean say $300 instead of a $250 launch price for the machine itself and then you have to add $50 for the advanced Wii U controller which would give a $350 launch price for the Wii U if they wanted to make a little profit with every unit solds like with the Wii. But Nintendo learned from the 3DS launch fiasco and thus will allow themselves instead to lose a few Dollars on each Wii U unit sold to offer an attractive price - $300.

Anyone who thinks it will be 300 or less is gonna be surprised when the price is finally announced. Won't be near 600 either.

yay!!! now sony won't be the only company that looks like an asshole!!!

Yeah like Nintendo will repeat Sonys misstake with a 600$ console

We're way too far away from the launch of WiiU to believe any price posted by random sites.

Realistically, I'm not sure if Nintendo knows what they will be selling it for at the moment; and, while I'm sure they have a target price, I doubt they will be setting the price until the Wii U is within weeks of being released.

No, seems highly unlikely. I would guess a launch price of around 400$ myself.
The peripherals, however, will be insanely expensive, I shudder at the thought of the prices of controllers...
Then again, according to most Wii fans, price doesn't matter so the Wii U should kill everything, even at 600$ launch price.