Only you can decide. I could afford to own a 360 and PS3 yet I own neither. Why? Because too few of the games on those consoles appeal to me. It's an individual thing. Only you can decide what is most important to you.
I recommend not buying any console at launch. Wait and see what happens. That's what I've done with the 3DS. I haven't bought one yet and I'm not sure I ever will.
I'm happy with any of the following colors: black, black, or black. Why? Because everything else in our AV rack is black. The color of the current Wii doesn't matter because it's in a bedroom connected to an SD TV.
I know Nintendo won't do it but I wish they'd launch the Wii U in both black and white. And watch what happens. I think they'd learn something from it.
The quote says it will likely cost more than $250. It doesn't specify how much more. Could cost $100+ more.
Nintendo is stuck between a rock and a hard place. "Core" gamers want it to have a 16-core, 100 GHz CPU, a Nitrogen-cooled GPU, and 32 TB of RAM. But they don't want it to cost more than $399. How can Nintendo win?