ShopTo estimates Wii U price at ?280

ShopTo estimates the Wii U price will be £280 and games will cost £40.

Product pages for the black Wii U and the white Wii U both carry an RRP of £279.99 - although ShopTo does mention the price is subject to change pending full details from Nintendo, which is yet to make any announcement on the matter.

Still, ShopTo's estimate tallies with a Nikkei report that this week claimed the Wii U would cost 30,000 yen - roughly £250.

For now, the Wii U price remains unannounced. But at E3 this week Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime told IGN that fans will be "pleasantly surprised" by the value of the product.

"The first thing I would say is we focus on value," he said. "So it's what you get for what you pay, in terms of that overall proposition. Second thing I would tell you is that Nintendo believes in being a mass-market product. Unlike our competitors, when they've launched historical systems, to maybe start at a really high price and work their way down, we don't believe in that. We want to launch at a price that is going to represent an ongoing great value.

"You look at the Wii, we stayed at 250 dollars for a really long time. And so we're going to give that same level of thought to the Wii U. How do we launch at a value that we're going to be able to sustain for a long time? I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised, if you will, about the way we're managing the value equation."