Definitely has to be lower-priced. PS4/X1 will have a 3.5 year headstart, and even PS4 Pro will beat it out of the gate with X1.5 on its heels, so for a lot of people this will be a 2nd console. Most people who buy it will be doing it for a) Nintendo exclusives and b) Taking current gen games on the go, so for it to succeed it's gotta be priced for that market.
Wii U started at $350 and it's barely gone down from there, but it was essentially two major pieces of hardware in one box. By combining those into one unit with the Switch, that's a nice chunk of change shaved off production costs.
Next most important is power for the sake of keeping the barriers to third party ports as low as possible. We don't know the final specs, but we've heard it's about where the X1 is, probably a little under that, and that should be plenty for keeping up with third party ports through the end of the gen.
Last is battery life. Though portability is probably the biggest factor that sets Switch apart from the competition, it needs to be a viable platform first and it can't do that if it's too expensive for people to buy or if it's too weak for third parties to support. It'll just be a repeat of the Wii U. 3 hours is exactly what I expected, and not even the worst we've had with other systems that were handheld-only. Nintendo has to leverage it against power and I think their priorities are in the right order here.
That said, it needs to aim for $250. Especially with the 4K consoles out at $400 and presumably even more for X1.5, $250 or less will be the sweet spot.
