Wii u has never received a price cut, it's costing 299$ since its  launch! ( Okay the 8gb version which was discontinued later and 32gb dropped to 299$ from 349$! )

While gamecube, which is the closest comparing metric to wii u, had one of 50$ in 2002 an another one of the same degree in 2003, reaching 99$ price point...

Nintendo is certainly unable/reluctant to cut the price because of an expensive component! Apparently, related to wii u tablet controller!

If  nintendo would be able to still profit while having reduced price, they would have already done it for the 5-7m+ more sales of the wii u, but it's worthless to do  if you gonna lose money, especially so late...

So, what this has to do with switch price?

Wii u dramatical curtailment of production! Nintendo forecasted only 800k wii u for that fiscal year, from the 3.6m of the previous year, while they have already shipped 560k, leaving only 240k for the holiaysss... This aim doesn't pertain to lower demand, it's something else. ;)

Wii u premature production ceasing! Nintendo phased out  gamecube in the first quarter of 2008,  that's 4 years and a half vs 6 years and a half...

Nintendo clearly wants no wii u on the shelves after switch launch, because otherwise they would have to abate the price of it by more than 100$! The reason why? Because switch will be under 299$ and its older and weaker brother can't cost more than it, hence the wii u situation in 2016 and the early discontinuation.

P.s Ι continue to dream Nintendo reconsidering and keeping  wii u in the market for more, even if  being more expensive than switch... heheeh

Give me wii u mini Nintendo!

I don't know how expensive the NS's components will be, but I'm sure they will get cheaper faster due to them being mobile components.

I don't think the 2 are related really.

The Wii U is pretty price inelastic, so why bother cutting profit margins? Nintendo isn't the kind to dramatically cut a systems price just to get rid of stock, they're the kind to not replenish stock they know they won't sell. In the case of the Wii U it has zero games arriving beyond Zelda and is a tarnish on their name, they don't want it next to Switch in Toy R Us. The gamecube still received a lot of games in 2006.

Thank you!

It's true that your components providers are inclined to lower the cost of  the components when your products is popular!  Sadly, wii u wasn't but gc wasn't either, howbeit it had two huge price drops! Although that should have been  because GC was anywise very cheap to produce and Nintendo had the lewway to slash its price and still profit, unlike the wii u, where the tablet controller costed 80$ alone...

Nintendo took a huge risk this gen, maybe wii  financial and commercial huge success blinded them?

Anyway, I think that wii u was a good lesson for them. ;)

Do you think that because of the switch hardware nature, ( I mean it has mobile parts, mostly  )reduction of manufacturing cost and price drops by extend would be easy, regardless the popularity ?

Wii u's forth year sales are near  to those of gc in its forth year so far, with wii u being expensive/overpriced and gc being overly cheap... So they could still try with it!

They decided to reduce the production instead, they aim to 800k wii u units shipped for the current fiscal year, while they have already shipped the 560k prior to holidays... Gap with gc is at 5.5m, which will  expand dramatically in that quarter, because wii u isn't going to have a last normal holidays selling period like gc had before being replaced by wii the next year.

Apparently, Nintendo  would be forced to cut wii u price after switch launch, which will cost less than 299$, since as I aforesaid the older and weaker brother of switch can't have higher price than it, thus they prefer to discontinue wii u because they can't/aren't eager to diminish the price of their product.

Do you think that Nintendo wouldn't like to sell another 4m wii u units  between FY16-FY18 instead of 800k just in FY16 and more software by extend?

I have mentioned that Nintendo ended the production of gc in the first quarter of 2008, when they shipped 140k and had the vastly selling wii my friend by then...

That's actually a good theory. we shall see

I see what you mean, but Nintendo being Nintendo could price it above $300 USD

My initial guess was at the 300 mark, but seeing that it could be below is a good sign

ya most rumors are putting it at $250 for the base model & $300 for the premium model. That sounds like the right price to me.