Oh my God! Could the Wii U be fated like the Dreamcast? I certainly hope not, but the industry is so wierd now. This is kind of reminiscent of my concerns when Microsoft came out with the Xbox. Gamecube and Xbox did not do that well last gen, PS2 obviously won out huge, I'm not sure if some of that was a result of the Xbox introduction. Maybe Xbox ate into Gamecube sales? Maybe Xbox launch bolstered people up to PS2? I can't really say, but it would have been different if Nintendo and Sony were the only console developers that gen. Anyway, Nintendo came back in a big way by creating a casual market but what if that market doesn't react like the core does, because essentially the console strategy is effective among the core market. Releasing consoles every ~5 years has been effective for quite some time. The casual market though? Maybe they are more attuned to every year, like we see with Apple's iPhone. If you lose the attention you can't just gain it back 5 years down the road can you? Will the masses that bought the Wii put down their iPhones and pick up a Wii U? Will core gamers flock to the Wii U? It will be interesting to see what Nintendo pulls off during its head start because this is a scary time.

Judging by everything we've seen so far, as rumors go:
$300-$400 Wii U
$400-$600 PS4/Xbox 3

I think all 3 companies will try aiming towards the lower end of those ranges, but first year prices might not afford that.

We mustn't forget that it's a huge advantage to launch first in a generation.

If it's only $300 at launch it will become a huge success.

Even $400 is reasonable because it doesn't need to sell more than 10 mill in its first year, and by the time PS4 and X720 come out at $400, the Wii U will have dropped to just $300.

Consoles are much more likely to drop in $50 increments, and price drops are less likely to occur on a yearly basis at the beggining of its life cycle. They are mostly timed around market trends and the ability to reduce costs to produce. If the Wii U is a less powerful system then they will most likely opt to keep their pricing sheme as long as it is under that of their competitors. Pricing equally to a competition with better tech could prove disasterous if done for an extended period of time. A Wii U price change will depend highly on the competitors launch prices. For example, the 3DS, though I would argue its original price point should have been $200 and still $200 today. Witnessing a sales slump and with Sony's Vita launching at $250 they had very little choice. Right now it is impossible to tell whether the Wii U will cut their price in correspondence to their competition because we do not know the exact price of any 3 of the machines.