As a parent and a "gamer" (though I'm not elitist enough to call myself a "hardcore" gamer), I have a Wii and love playing it with my wife and boy, although of course he can't play RE4. I was interested in it because the other consoles seemed to be focusing on "media center" (don't care) and competitive FPS/sports games (don't really care) and 3d DMC-like action/adventure games (like, but not 400-600$ worth.) And the price definitely had an effect on the decision to purchase it. I'll admit the Wii library is heavy on minigame collections and movie tie-ins, but there's plenty of those on the other consoles, and they have a preponderance of FPSes. Anyway, for "self" gaming I am interested in a 360 as well, I've heard lots of cool things about XBLA , though I probably won't get too far into the trashtalking chestthumping of XBL competitive games (although I could go for some Uno.).
Anyway, I'd like to MS to drop the price on the Elite, and for the hardware to be a little more stable/nondefective (even the GPU errors on the Wii didn't totally stop gameplay, and I got a replacement unit in ten days, counting July 4 holiday and weekends), and to have the ability to transfer data/DLC content after the first one breaks, before I get one.
I do think the Wii will keep selling, it'll probably slow down a bit, but Nintendo has a lot of great-looking franchise titles coming out. And assuming they're available, buying a 250-Wii to go with your 299-480 360 will be a lot easier purchase than the other way around, for those gamers who now have families.
I don't see a parent saying "Well, the 250$ Wii is out of stock, so let's the the 300-400 360, which doesn't come with a game--, hmm, how about The Darkness for 60 bucks for little Johnny?" at least not until near the holidays and it's "crunch time" for filling up under the tree.
PS2, yeah, I can see that as being more of an impulse purchase--it does have a great library, and the price of even the Wii, you could get the PS2, another controller and up to 5 games.
Anyway, if the Elite (or all) 360s drop 50 bucks, then the year of Live which CC gave away would in effect be "free" now, although I wouldn't mind a better deal (I missed the free-controller-and-FF2 game) deal.
Like was said before, 400-480 for a console that it's quite likely will break very soon, and be replaced with a functionally lesser unit, is pretty expensive. I don't like buying things I know will break.