It's not as simple as market share=profits for Nintendo.

For Microsoft and Sony, losses on hardware are recouped via; 1st party software sales, 3rd party licensing fees and subscription fees. In fact, assuming this gen lasts 10 years, that's a potential £600 per customer extra over the course of the gen (PSN, £5 a month, for 10 years). So Microsoft and Sony can safely lose money on hardware, safe in the knowledge that those losses will be recouped by their subscription costs, as well as licensing and sales.

For them, the market share is crucial, as it can help lead to their platform being used as the lead by 3rd parties, giving them the definitive version, leading to a better public perception and ultimately, more sales. This is why Microsoft is keen to improve market share; it makes their platform more viable longer term.

Nintendo, conversely, only has 2 real sources of income; hardware and 1st party software (OK, and Amiibo, but that's as yet undeveloped*). There's no subscription that will offset hardware losses, and 3rd parties have well and truly abandoned them. Cutting revenue to increase marketshare will not, as it would for Sony and Microsoft, pay dividends in time.

3rd parties aren't going to turn around and come back to Nintendo this gen. It takes 2 years to make a game, so companies have to think 2 years ahead to see if investment is worthwhile. The Xbox One probably looks safe, especially considering its comparable specs and recent turnaround, the Wii U certainly doesn't.

Nintendo, therefore, has no real incentive to attack market share, when they can instead focus on profit.
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*Amiibo could well turn out to be very lucrative for Nintendo, and may well end up playing the subscription element in their business model. If a good proportion of Wii U and 3DS owners buy 3/4 amiibos a year, that would replace the income generated by Microsoft and Sonys subscriptions.

Indeed, if amiibos continue to sell well, they might well be integrated into the next Nintendo console's strategy to the same extent that subscriptions are to Microsoft and Sony's

Wii U should not be higher than 250€ imo!

Hope so, i really want one, nearly got one this Xmas, but its so overdue a price cut i thought id wait a little longer.

Nintendo needs to make their system easy to port to (x86 architecture) and cheap for a high marketshare. That would bring third parties back.

The original Wii had profit and marketshare and look where Nintendo is now. Honestly at this point it doesn't matter what Nintendo does this gen, they're still f**ked.

When the Wii U 8gb Skylander bundle was priced at $199 that didn't make a dent in sales so Nintendo shouldn't care about price cut. If they can't gain marketshare then make as much profit as they can. Besides, Nintendo is like the anti-price cut king.

They all three have their way of doing business. Sony and Microsoft are big corporations so they can take more chance on taking a loss for marketshare which leads to profit with XBL/PSN and software. Though this is more directed at MSFT than Sony since they rely on Playstation more than MSFT does with Xbox.

Nintendo is a game company though and theyre not owned by a big corporation so its more important for their hardware to be profitable than PS and XB.

The Gamecube can be used as an example. I mean yeah it wasnt the best selling console of all time. But it sold moderately well and it profited.

The WiiU is likely to be even worst off than Gamecube when it comes to sales but nintendo is good at pulling out a profit. I think nintendo just needs to go back to the drawing boards for their next console and focus on making as much money as they can with the WiiU.

I still 100% believe that a lot of Nintendo's problems is variety and perception. And i believe they could change that if they tried.

I voted "No" but I obviously don't think Wii U is fine.

As with others, I believe Nintendo's current emphasis with Wii U is for profit rather than marketshare. I don't think Microsoft's move will force Nintendo's hand at all, in that vein.

I voted no, reasons:

Wii U is up YoY and Nintendo look like they'll hit their (modest) Wii U target for the FY. They don't need to drop the price because they've already done what they set out to do this year.

They will however need and should drop it in the next FY which could be anytime after March 31st. This will give it a decent chance of growth for another year.

Doing that will make things look like this:

FY13 - released

FY14 - shocking year but still technically in growth although only because of a full 12 months

FY15 - growth due to MK and Smash

FY16 - possible growth due to price cut

Thats 3 years of growth. For a dead console, thats pretty damn good.

Nintendo are playing the long game with the Wii U.

Didn't Wii U just have its best month ever despite Xbox One being $350?

But it would have sold 10 million in just one month if it was only $0.99 cheaper!