Why do people think that Nintendo's next handheld needs to cost that much in order for it to have a decent performance? Do you honestly think that $400-600 phones cost that much to make?
Average bill of materials for a flagship today is around $230. And I'm talking about aluminum body, GPS, mobile chip, 3 GB RAM, 13-20 rear and 2-5 MP front cameras, etc.
If we take into consideration that next Nintendo handheld will have plastic body, no GPS, no mobile chip, 2 GB RAM, lower res cameras (around 5 MP) and other cuts when compared to a flagship, Nintendo could very well cut BOM below $200 and sell the device for $199 and still make a few bucks per unit. Not to mention that hardware will make strides towards being more powerful and cheaper. See, console makers make most of their money on software, so they have to sell hardware at loss or for a very small profit margin. Samsung, LG, and others have to make money on hardware, therefore, profit margins for phones and tablets must be much higher.
Nintendo is known not to be fond of losing money on hardware, but they will have to reconsider their strategy if the want to archieve strong market penetration. Ideally, they'll sell their next handheld at $150. Hell, Sony lost $300-350 per PS3 sold (if my memory serves me right).