Not so sure for $50 price cut, but I can definitely see at Christmas time Wii U Mario Kart bundle for 269-279$, and that will be good deal and will sell very well.

We will not see 200$ Wii U for couple of years, probably at end of console life.

Gamecube went to $99 in it's second full year and that system was comparable to it's competition in power. Nintendo really messed up.

It really needs to be $250 with a AAA title packed it (SM3DW, DKC, Mario Kart, SSB). If the Wii launched at $350 and was dropped to $299, it wouldn't have done nearly as well either. It's just an expensive Nintendo console right now. Compared to PS4 and Xbox One it's cheaper, but they are not competing with them anymore. It's just it's own thing. Last gen already proved that you can convince a whole lot of people that they need a Nintendo to go along with their Playstation or Xbox. Just today a store on Ebay were selling the NSMBU bundle for $260 and they sold 1100 within 2 hours. On Black Friday Target sold out of $250 Wii U's quickly. Gamestop just lowered the 32 GB used model to $230 and the 8 GB model to $199 and both shot up the sales charts. The lineup is decent right now, the future lineup is really good, the price though is making most people not want to pull the trigger.

Same goes for the 3DS's declining sales. The original DS was only at 20 million consoles sold nearly 2 years after launch when the DS lite came out for $149 and the original model dropped to $120. This happened too after eventual massive selling software was already released like Nintendogs, NSMB, Mario Kart DS, and Animal Crossing. After that the DS Lite on its own sold over 90 million units, and overall the DS sold 155 million. If we used projections from the 1st 2 years, it really should have only sold somewhere in the 75 million range, but the new model and price cuts did the trick in a big way. The 3DS was a freaking awesome library already, It's just a little pricey. XL model is $199, Regular is $169, and the 2DS is $129. Lower them all by $30 and 3DS sales will go through the roof. The thing was bombing hard at $230, and now at this price scheme has sold 43 million. Drop it another $30 and the console really has a realistic shot at 90+ million.

The lack of a DVD player made the Gamecube seem like a rip-off no matter how cheap it became.      Gamecube dropped to $99 in September of 2003. PS2 at the time was $180, and only a few months later was dropped to $150.  DVD players at the time on their own were about $90 for a cheap one, $120 for a good name brand one.      It was just a tough sell for Nintendo.    It's funny because tons of gamers now consider the Gamecube to be one of the greatest consoles ever, even though it sold poorly.   The Wii U is already shaping up to me to be one of my favorite consoles ever.  I really havn't played a Wii U exclusive stinker yet other then Game and Wario.

-NSMBU - A rehash but a fun rehash.

-ZombiU -  Great throwback style survival game.

-Pikmin 3 - Amazing Game.

-Wonderful 101 - Most underappreciated game of 2013 by far.  High learning curve but it is just so original compared to everything else on the market.

-Rayman Legends - Great Platformer.  Awesome use of the Gamepad.

-Wii Party U - Solid Game but the Remote being packed in made it a great value so it's hard to knock it for what it is.

-Wind Waker HD - A Remake done right.  Made other remakes on Xbox and PS3 seem totally half assed.

-SM3DW - Smashed all of my expectations.  Figured it would be a SM3DL rehash but was anything but.

My biggest knock on the Wii U right now is that the games need to come out faster, and they need to stop with the garbage NES Virtual Console games.  Nearly all of them are just outdated and suck.   The games that do come out are just amazing quality and by the end of this gen, any gamer who is missing out on Wii U for $199 or less is going to be kicking themselves later when the Wii U becomes a cult status console like Dreamcast and Gamecube.

Yes, but even with that price Gamecube had profitability for Nintendo.

$250 is right price for Deluxe Wii U with one game, but because of losses even with $299 price, Nintendo just can't sold Wii U at that price, at least not this year, but $269-279 price at the end of year is possible.

Nintendo could always avoid price cuts by offering Nintendo points to buy games online through ther eshop.

No.

Wii Us sell out in minutes when they are 260 ish (mario or zelda bundle).  So I think that is what the public wants.  I can definitely see a Mario Kart + Mario 2D bundle at 299.  Standard bundle dropped to 250 (without kart).  No use giving away you big hitter for free.

Then retailers can give some incentives on top of that come holidays.

I think they'll cut the price once more (Q4 this year) by about 50$ and then attempt to up the perceived value by adding features, bigger storage units, online content and other incentives instead for some time, those are kinder measures for the bottom line and investors simply won't allow them to slash the price and remain at a loss or barely profitable position throughout the console's lifetime.

It's not only losses that are the concern here; there is no guarantee that a lower price will help much with sales at all if the core product simply isn't appealing (which it isn't, in my opinion). Being dirt-cheap did virtually nothing for the Gamecube so the strategy of slashing and slashing at the price is likely not worth it. They'll likely consolidate with the fact that they simply won't have a large installed base this gen and try to squeeze some much needed green out of the white box.

Maybe if they build a new SKU, with a smaller gamepad.
But wont happen this year.