Unless you are one of the few (the lucky lucky few) who actually got to purchase a PS3 for retail price late last night or early this morning, it looks like you are stuck with having to fork over roughly $3500+ for PS3 before Christmas.

But, wait, what is that on the Horizon? It looks like a gamer, playing upon a pale system. And the name of that gamer… it’s none other than Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. The system he’s on is Nintendo’s Wii, available in stores starting Sunday for $250.

Well, in comparison to the cost of picking up a PS3 in the dog-eat-dog world of eBay, $250 doesn’t sound too bad for a top-notch game system. But that almost wasn’t the case. In fact, during the original planning stages, the projected cost of the Wii wasn’t anywhere near $250.

It was much, much lower.

According to Miyamoto, Nintendo was originally intending to release their next-gen system for less than $100. However, as they continued to add features to the system, the cost of manufacturing just caught up with them.

"We had to compromise on graphics," Miyamoto said. He went on to say, "Many of our employees initially wanted high-definition graphics. But they agreed with us that graphics wouldn’t matter if the games weren’t fun to play."

Trust me, I’m not one to scoff at graphics, but now having played the Wii, Miyamoto is 100% right on this one. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun playing a video game. The only thing I can compare my first Wii experience to is my first experience with an Atari system. That’s right, the Wii made me feel like I was experiencing gaming for the first time all over again.

So, while they may have missed the $99 retail mark, they hit the bullseye with their product. Huzzah, Miyamoto. Huzzah.

GamesIndustry: Nintendo wanted Wii to cost under $100, says Miyamoto