Because that's entirely what I said. /sarcasm.
It's just received a price drop. It is unlikely to receive significant price reduction for the foreseeable near to mid-term. What I wrote is the situation at hand, and it's a frankly stupid strategy.
So Nintendo are positioning this system as a "secondary console" for it's eventual $200 price in 2015, or $150 price point in 2016, while it languishes on the market for three years in irrelevance? Good luck with that.
Well they're not gonna position the Wii U as an additional purchase
now, since new consoles are only launching then. They don't expect, and I don't expect, people to buy both a PS4 or Xbone AND a Wii U this holiday. That doesn't make any sense.
Of course that strategy of being adopted as one of two systems (I didn't say second by the way, I said one of two) is a long-term one. The goal is that this generation, over the next five or six years, people are gonna own both a PS4/Xbone/PC and a Wii U. They don't have to buy them both now. If someone buys an Xbox One in the 2013 holiday season and a Wii U in the 2014 holiday season, mission accomplished.
People will buy the Wii U, the PS4 and/or the Xbone when they feel the price is right. It can be now, it can be in 2014, it can be in 2015, it can be at the end of its life. Why would it have to be now while it's at $300? People buying it in 2015 at $200 or something will still be a part of the install base, so I'm not sure where you were going with this. Having 20 million people over the course of the next generation buying a Wii U at some point when they feel the price is right for them, is far from an unrealistic target.
Please, feel free to share these numbers that you're apparently privy to.
I'd have to dig the exact numbers, which would be a pain, but I think we can all use our memory. How much did Black Ops, for example, sell on the Xbox 360 and the PS3, and how much did it sell on the Wii? You can interpret the numbers as you wish, but it seems pretty clear to me that perhaps people bought one console to play Call of Duty, Madden and Assassin's Creed, and another console to play Mario Kart, Skyward Sword and Just Dance.
By now it should be pretty obvious that Microsoft and Sony are pushing hard for their next-gen systems to look as hardcore as possible, and Nintendo is pushing hard for the Wii U to be the ultimate party console.
The problem with the GameCube gen is that all three systems tried to be the core console. This isn't happening again this time, and thanks to the Wii and the DS, Mario Kart got bigger, Mario got bigger, Smash Bros. got bigger, and in addition to that, they got several other new multi-million sellers, and opened a market for third parties to make their own that would match the system's identity.
For the Wii U to go below the GCN, all the new Wii IP's would have to go from several millions to tens of millions to zero, as the GameCube didn't have them. Mario Kart would have to go from tens of millions on the Wii and DS to a few millions. 3D Mario would have to lose close to half what it did.
So, I think odds that a fraction of those people eventually buy a Wii U for them are relatively good, even if they already own another system.
Also, because it's a funny video on the topic:
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/wzzto7/gt-tv-reggie-fils-aime-promo-clip