They wanna try to catch the success the Wii had with the same strategy, don't know if thatll work out this time.

I don't see how $50 invested into the chipset "destroys" Nintendo. 

When you get to $300-$350, you're already well outside the budget/impulse market anyway. Nintendo should've just accepted that. If you're going into that range, you might as well go into the $350-$400 range for a few months and really give your console some firepower under the hood. 

Get more hardcore players on board now by differeniating it from the PS3/360 moreso, that would be a better ticket, then drop the price next year ahead of the Durango/Orbis launches and start to court more casual/budget concious consumers. A year from now IMO a lot of developers would be saying "do we even need a PS4 or 720? We already have this system that gives us a nice leap beyond the PS3/360 and it has a real userbase and a cheaper price point".

The way it is right now I think they sorta made a system that's not casual enough for the casuals and budget shoppers (doesn't have a new "hook" as attractive as motion gaming was 6 years ago, isn't cheap enough either), but doesn't represent enough of a leap from the PS3/360 to get that audience base excited either. 

I disagree with you here. They have taken advantage of their chance. They have become the dominant handheld in japan and now they seek to have the overall dominant marketshare. And 'undercooking' the specs means it won't overheat as much.

Miss their opportunity to do what? Make great games? They'll probably do that anyway no matter what the specs.

Missed their oppurtunity to gain a lot of developer support by giving developers the option of a system that is a solid and immediately noticable upgrade on the PS3/360, and having a year to themselves to make their case to non-Nintendo fans with the best versions of BLOPS2, Madden NFL, BioShock Infinite, GTAV, etc. 

I think honestly some devs might've just opted to make the Wii U their lead platform for a lot of content period. 

They want something beyond the 2005-06 era hardware ... but it doesn't have to be a ridiculous 10-20x leap anymore, Nintendo had a real chance here to comfortably bring something to market that represented a real difference from the 360/PS3, but instead Nintendo just basically gave them another 360/PS3 (better in some ways, worse in others). 

They still might. We don't know anything about the other systems yet. People are putting too much emphasis on the power argument just because of a quote made by Reggie. It won't matter what they are capable of if nobody buys them developers won't care. I think we all know nintendo has a struggle to get devs like bethesda on board but the question you want to be asking yourself is would they have gone on board anyway? I think not.

Power is not the reason they ignored the system. Power is just the reason they missed out on a lot of multiplats. But I question if epic or bethesda were going to be on board with wii even if it had the power on par with ps3 or 360. Epic once said the second nintendo make a system that can run their engine they will be on it like water on fish. That system is now here. So where are they?

The way this plays out will depend entirely on the consumers. Sony said they shoot for the moon. It can certainly shoot for the moon but it was a waste of time when the stuff that shot for the moon was being cancelled/moved/delayed because nobody bought a system at that price.

But why would someone jump ship for a slightly upscaled version they can play with their friends on their current console? I don't think Nintendo is trying to peel too many consumers away from their Xbox and PS3 consoles; I think they're trying to make sure that the system doesn't fade in the home stretch like Wii did. I think you're underestimating the allure of "HD Nintendo console." And I think you're underestimating the number of Wii owners who will upgrade.

If you combine former Wii owners, Nintendo loyalists, video game buffs who want to own all consoles, plus a bunch of people who want the latest sexy gadget, you've got one hell of a consumer base. Sure, Nintendo won't get every third-party game. But it has never, ever needed to. You've got some of the best and most popular IPs on the planet, plus lots of potential support from Japanese developers, plus enough third-party games to keep the software portfolio diverse. Plus Nintendo TVii and Miiverse, which help Wii U transcend the traditional boundaries of video game console.

I actually think developers will take advantage of more powerful hardware if it's actually more powerful, I don't buy the conspiracy theories that developers don't want to make games look their best. 

They don't want to have to bend over backwards to get better performance out of a 2012 chipset than a 2005 one though. And that's fair enough in my opinion. 

The 3DS was just a poorly conceived launch period. No major Nintendo game release and an inflated $250 price point for a system with visual performance lagging behind an iPod touch and a mediocre/non-existent online infastructure ... that was aimed at hardcore audiences? Really? More like kids with rich parents. 

Nothing conspirological, multiplat Wii U games won't look singinficantly better than current gen consoles for the whole year to come, not until X720 and PS4 will come out. What's the point of such investment?

I don't really believe that. If the system was more powerful IMO a lot of developers would take PC assets and effects and start implimenting them into the Wii U versions, rather than just dumping the PS3/360 builds and leaving it at that (not worth the effort to put in any more because the system's roof isn't much higher).

And there's really no "investment" being made here. $300-$350 is not cheap. If you're going to go into that price range, you might as well create a system that is definitively better than 7 year old hardware, even if it means going another $50 up. 

You're not in the demographic range for budget shoppers/regular kids anyway. So you might as well try to make hay with the older hardcore players who do have more disposal income, the $50 increase gets passed off onto them. 

Also, the whole "1080p is just moderately different from 720p" is a lark. I've played even a mid-tier game like Sonic Generations on the PC versus the PS3/360 versions on the same TV, and the difference is immediately noticable, not one of those "well if you kinda squint you can see the difference" type deals. The PC version looks a lot better.