Yep $399 that is for PS or a Xbox but for Nintendo it's a totally different story more like $229 max.

Wii U isn't a weak system, wii was.

When looking at power x price, things could go like this: wii u was released in 2012 for $299/$349. It has about 3x the raw power of ps360 and it's controller is somewhat more expensive than a regular controller, it also had 4x the amount of ram memory. the ps360 used top tech from 2005/2006, so wii u had to use gpu tech from at least 2008-2009 to be 3x more powerfull.

If a wii u successor releases in 2017, this has to be considered: ps4 (most powrfull home console of 8th gen) didn't come close to using top tech of 2013. this means wii u successor can use tech from 2013 and still be 4-5x more powerfull than ps4. since it won't have to use tech from years later, this part of the hardware will be proportionally cheaper than wii u. we should probably/hopefully see a controller that's a fusion of wii mote + nunchuck and the pro controller, so this part of the hardware will also be cheaper. ram memory is getting stagnant, a top pc from 2015 barely has double the amount of ram of a top pc from 2010-2011. So I don't see any 9th gen console having more than 24gb of ram (even 20gb might be too much). let's say it will have 16gb of ram, so it's also proportionally cheaper than wii u. a 100-200gb hard drive/flash memory might be the same price as the current 32gb on wii u, so this part should stay the same price.

with all that considered, wii u's successor could be released for $249 in 2017, having 4-5x the raw power of ps4 and 2-3x it's ram memory. or nintendo could make something 6-7x more powerfull than ps4 and sell it for $299 or a little more. still in the same price range of wii u at lauch, but with a bigger jump from the previous generation.

They are both weak systems. Both are just subtle improvements over the generation before.

I hope the OP is right, but doubt that it'll happen. They either need to figure out a way to cater to the hardcore gamers or find another trend to make, like with the original Wii. They're kinda stuck between the two situations, imo, and it's not going very well for them.

Clearly we've been talking about different things. I'm comparing the Gamecube to the generation before (PS1/N64), it represented cutting edge hardware and a massive leap in power,  something the Wii and Wii U didn't. Of course it wasn't a massive leap over the PS2 because they're of the same generation, both were released within a year of each other and the PS2 wasn't a slouch.  THe next Nintendo system isn't going to be in the same generation as PS4/X1, it didn't launch in 2014, so naturally it should be significantly more powerful and Nintendo history prior to the Wii shows that they're more then capable of delivering when it comes to powerful hardware. That was more point :)

If you want Nintendo to die, sure why not.

Unfortunately, Iwata basically confirmed that the console won't be super powerful.

what would be interesting if they implement a console with dual or triple gpus eg: AMD Crossfire or Nvidia SLI
use 2-3 lesser gpus (about 60-70% the performance of ps4's gpu each), use an intel cpu something like an i5 @ 2-2.6 ghz or a highly clocked AMD cpu, 16 gb of GDDR5 or DDR4 ram, 1 sata 3.2 port with the default hdd with 2 tb of storage and one sata m2 for optional ssd upgrade.
why did i include a multiple gpu config? Because console developers tends to be creative with the use of hardware and tend to bring some api elements first.
Example when seventh gen started most gamng pcs were running single core or dual core cpus while the x360 had a tricore cpu and the ps3 had some sort of hyper threading like design. also, the eight gen opt to use 8 cores on their consoles.
if it sells decent enough they will make gpu scaling easier due to having more developers working with multiple gpus.

I think the exact opposite, Nintendo needs to make a bare bones system that is 250$ Day 1.