drohne said:psp's value has nothing to do with its "perceived utility" and everything to do with the actual expense and difficulty of building a handheld with that kind of performance. psp was cutting edge hardware in 2004. wii was cutting edge hardware in 2001. the sooner we accept this, the sooner we can put the lid on this needlessly stirred pot of shit.
actually my problem with wii isn't so much that it costs $250 -- that's not much to pay for the entertainment a console is likely to provide. but if nintendo wanted to build a $250 console, they might at least have used a newish ati graphics part instead of saddling users with decrepit graphics for the next five or six years. they haven't built a $250 console.
Do you know the specs? Are you even taking into account the smaller size of the Wii? Going by past precedents, making graphics technology fit into a smaller casing actually increases price. It's the reason why the PS2 costs less than a PSP, though it can output better graphics. Nintendo valued small size and efficiency for it's next console. It's only "poor hardware" if you don't value these things.
And the efficiency aspect is something I greatly value. I think that the PS3 is going to have a lot of hardware issues. They never show you that red indicator light (the one that says you have a hardware problem) in an Xbox360 screenshot.