I personally believe that the Wii U will be expensive once the price is announced, with a price range coming between 350 to 400 dollars.  No matter what the price is though, it’s going to be lose-lose for Nintendo.

I’ll use 300 dollars as the inflection point of the Wii U and the cost of an additional tablet at $80-100.

If it’s above $300:

Investors will trash the stock as they view that a 300$ Wii U will not be able to successfully compete with whats currently available from Microsoft and Sony.

The price will be too high to penetrate the existing PS360 model (if they are truly going after the core market).  This is especially true if the Wii U 3rd party games coming out do not have any significant value added services over their PS360 counterparts.

The price will drive away casuals.  Reggie said to Time magazine back in November that "We haven't announced pricing for Wii U, but you can definitely expect that pricing is going to be different and that the games are going to be different"  To me, that word "different" means more expensive.  The console and games will be more expensive than what people who bought a Wii were paying before, and I feel that many a casual gamers will not climb on board with the change.

The userbase will be low, which will put 3rd parties on pause as they try to sort out which platform to put their resources in.  With development costs going up, developers and publishers want to make sure that have the right game for the right system. The PS360 will still command a big chunk of 3rd party gaming revenue well into the Wii U's launch, so they can wait for Sony and Microsoft to come out with their latest offerings.

Microsoft will still control a lot of ad space and exclusive content, ”only on 360/better with Kinect” tag lines for a majority of the big 3^rd party games  being released during the fall.

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If the Wii U is below $300

Investors will trash the stock as they will be selling the system for a substantial loss.  Which for investors of Nintendo, they are not accustomed to. 

With the system being sold at a loss, Nintendo will rely on heavy first party sales which will crowd out 3^rd party sales, and we will have a repeat of the Wii.  PS360 revenue will be the majority driver of 3^rd party sales (as stated above), so they can sit on their hands and wait until Sony and Microsoft come out with their respective systems.

Sony and Microsoft will announce price drops of their systems making it a value proposition against the Wii U for incoming core gamers.  Kinect will see a price adjustment also to bring in the casual gamer that the Wii U market no longer caters to.

Nintendo will try to make their money on the back end by charging for whatever online service they are planning to use with the Wii U or through peripherals like the tablet controller itself, driving up cost of ownership pushing away casuals.

You have the diehard Nintendo fan that is going to buy whatever system they throw out so inital sales will be there but it wont be enough.  With the system releasing during a holiday season, we will see the normal fervor of threads where people post ebay prices etc etc; most of these actions will start occurring at the beginning of next year.

Ultimately with the Wii U, Nintendo will also be the jack of all trades and master of none...they will try to court/maintain the Wii audience and sway the core audience and fall flat with both.

This is just me speculating, if you agree with some of the premise I wrote, that’s great.  If you don't, hey, that’s great too.  

A $300 NEXT-GEN console will do just fine against PS360. WTF are you talking about?

360 was up to $400 when PS2/GC/Xbox were in the $100's and it still sold almost 6million the first year before PS3Wii launched.

As long as Wii U has a few solid 1st party high end games and the upgraded PS360 ports with a one or two AAA 3rd party true next-gen exclusive (as all first to the gen consoles have had), it will push out 6 to 8 million BEFORE holidays of 2013.

Man I can't wait for E3 to once again prove why Wii U will dominate. I'm seeing lines for Wii U in similar fashion as there were for Wii in 2006 E3. People waiting 4 hours just to play.

I'm very on the fence about getting a WiiU. i do want one but i won't pay a lot... I'm looking at £200 or less (obviously will be more) but il wait for that price point. £179 will do it for me.

the investors will always wine about something! if its too expenive they will moan, if its cheap and there selling loads they want it to cost more so they make more. 

$300 would be fine- I'm expecting $350, and even that would easily be able to hold up against the current HD offerings

i'll hope for $350, expensive enough to have good stats, cheap enough to be an impulse buy.

$300-$350
No more, no less. Unless they want trouble

$299.99 Base Model - Available in White. 8GB storage. Includes Wii Play/Party/Whatever Compilation

$349.99 "Limited Edition" Bundle - Available in Gloss Black. 32GB storage. Nintendo Network points. Includes Zelda E3 Experience, now fleshed out into its own short mini-game for free (ala Link's Crossbow Training, only better). 

Nintendo gets an extra $50 for from "hardcore" and Nintendo fanatics for probably what costs them $15 in extra components. Hardcores feel good about getting the "cooler" Wii U and a taste of Zelda in HD. 

Soccer moms/kids/casuals get their $299.99 model.

Win-win-win for everyone.

Yea but Nintendo aren't competing against PS3/360, they are competing with the PS4/720.

As much as Nintendo like to say they don't care what the competitors do, Nintendo really need to market this thing as something that is beyond what is currently available on the market, not just something that is on par with whats on the market. If they don't do this they run the risk of the Wii U simply becoming the Wii HD, which at this point just won't cut it as both the PS3/360 with Move/Kinect can fill in for that role for a lower price (even lower by the time Wii U comes out).

it is sort of is initially, the dreamcast wasn't really doing well against the ps1, and completely failed when the ps2.

But I agree with what you said otherwise.

Pretty much agree 100%, though I'd go even further and say that at $299 with the right 1st party games (which is key), it'll easily surpass 10m before Black Friday 2013.

And yeah, those E3 lines are going to be loooong.