Certainly this is information to be taken with a grain of salt, but Merrill Lynch is predicting that Nintendo will price the Wii console at $200 in the U.S. when it goes on sale later this year. Merrill Lynch analyst Justin Post said that at $200, not only does the console become far more attractive to consumers (especially in comparison to Xbox 360 and PS3), but it also could help speed adoption and consequently lead to greater third-party support.

The Wii in general also should cost far less to develop games for, and as a result Post said that third parties "are responding favorably to the lower-cost publishing environment for the Wii." Post added that the console "will appeal to a broad demographic of both hard-core and casual gamers." Indeed, that's what Nintendo is aiming for.

While most have speculated that the Wii would come in either at $199 or $249—an analyst was quoted in EGM as saying that $249 "sounds appropriate"—one unnamed Sega executive speaking with Forbes.com said that he believes it will actually sell for under $200. Now obviously $199 is under $200, but what if Nintendo went even lower than that? $179? Even $149? As it is, the demand is likely to be quite high, but at a sub $200 price, the demand would be astronomical.

Source: Forbes.com