Actually, since tech back then would cost hundreds, and would get rungs run around them by today's tech, that actually appears to have been the case for the last several years. Nintendo has seen what they could fit on a system for $200 each time, and the Wii only technically broke it in the regions with Wii Sports (it met the 25,000 yen price of the GC in Japan).

Actually, with the Wii only being moderately more powerful, that might have finally slowed down, but $300 just doesn't look likely when Nintendo always wants their systems at mass market prices right out of the gate (again, Wii only broke the price trend in regions with the bundling).

That's fair... but I think in a few more years, $300 may be the mass market price.

But, as you pointed out, technology is getting cheaper so fast that inflation can't really keep up - you could be right concerning the future price of the console, and still see it kicking the crap out of the PS3 and 360 in terms of horsepower.

That more depends on their thermal budget rather than their console price budget. The HD consoles still consume over 100W at the wall and they wouldn't be likely at all to go over 40W.

I really don't know what sort of thing determines that I'm sorry to say, but wouldn't the thermal budget for the ssame level of horsepower increase significantly over time too?

It's related to chip build. That thing about 90mn (assuming nanometers, but not sure what that's measuring) being the launch size for the chips on all the consoles, then going down to 65nm, with 45nm being the ideal. If that goes down even further, a 3.2ghz processor is not out of the question, but if not, Nintendo might do a slower multicore processor.

That's just a guess, though.

On a related note, 1GB of RAM is possible, but still another guess.

Generally to produce similar results you need to use a similar quantity of power. As Nintendo seem quite fond of the idea of a quiet and unobtrusive system the chances of them having the thermal budget of anything much more than the current Wii is quite slim. If Microsoft or Sony cannot stuff their consoles into a Wii sized package then its unlikely that Nintendo will do much better.

But what would be possible by 2011 or 2012?

I can't speculate on that one personally.

I project a processor very similar to the 360's in makeup and speed (Multicore PowerPC type, still made by IBM, 3.2GHz), but with significantly more RAM (at least 1 GB, possibly 2, integrated for video and non-video), with a GPU of similar clock speed to 360's as well (which is all possible if Nintendo goes with IBM and ATI again, who are the same companies making 360's parts. They won't be identical architecturally, but they will be close)