Nintendo Announces North American Launch Details For Wii U

While this might cause a price reduction on the PS3 and 360, I am not certain it will. I still think Nintendo is not planning for a lot of people filling up that 32 GB hard drive, and will need to have an additional hard drive attachment in the future.

Color me not really impressed at the moment. Time will tell.

Not impressed either, and MS and Sony should definitely drop their prices, we are looking at 7-year old consoles after all.

I think I will do with this console what I do with every console I buy.
1 : Wait for bugs to be fixed
2 : Wait for the library to expand
3 : Wait for a minimum of 8 must play for me games on the console to be out
4 : Wait for System Reviews
5 : Save Money so I don't bankrupt myself on another video game expenditure
So probably get it in late 2013

Agreed. That's what I do too. One of the things I expect from the Wii U is for it to be backwards compatible with the Wii, that way at least I'll feel that I'm getting my money's worth 'cause I'll be able to play all the Wii games (just 8) I never got to play 'cause I didn't buy that damn thing.
I feel they should have priced the premium option at $299 and call it a day. As it is, I feel greediness crept into their decision making process.
Those two SKUs actually managed to piss me off. They are basically selling you that shitty NintendoLand tech demo.
If you factor in the fact that you'll probably need to buy at least one Wiimote plus the gamepad you are looking at $400+.

Good plan. But 8 must plays that's a lot of games. Me I'd say 3 or 4 got to play games, but that's just me.

Not sure Microsoft or Sony will change the situation much with a price drop. After all, no one over the age of 15 would believe that the wiiU is a replacement for a Sony of Microsoft product, considering historical third party support.

Also, assuming Microsoft and/or Sony release new consoles with considerably more powerful hardware than the wiiU, then we might just have the same situation with the wii in that noone will bother putting in the extra effort to port games to it.

Not a very likely scenario. The WiiU already has some impressive third-party support, including exclusive rights to Beyonetta 2, and allegedly fully HD (meaning 1080p resolution at 60 fps) Black Ops 2.

And the odds are pretty good that the next Sony and MS consoles won't be a very big leap over the WiiU, given both the economic recession and the fact that the games division of both companies are pretty deep in the red. Neither of them can afford another debacle like the $600 launch of the PS3.

Let's not forget the flash storage memory difference. The basic package comes with 8GB of flash memory, while the deluxe comes with 32GB.

I don't even know if I'm going to get one. I waited a whole year to get a Wii and wound up selling it anyway a couple years later. I have a feeling this one will follow suit with tons of shovelware games and crappy online connectivity.