I entirely share the above opinion. Next gen for nintendo won't be so much about competition with Sony and MS, as it will be about getting the uPad in people's living rooms, where Nintendo will be directly confronting Apple.
I think it would be a huge mistake for Nintendo to even try competing with Apple with the Wii U. You simply cannot compete with Apple using a 6.2 inch resistive touch screen that won't function a certain distance away from a console that people speculate will have 8GB of flash memory in it
at most. They simply don't have the hardware, and most importantly they don't yet have the app ecosystem to even
think about taking on Apple. Wii U is very much a
games console, and its competition is still very much MS and Sony. Nothing wrong with that.
If any of the Big 3 is taking on Apple it's definitely MS. They've gone the furthest turning their games console into a all-around digital entertainment device for the living-room. Heck, they're already doing it with the 360.
I think people give Apple too much credit. They make great portable consumer devices, but home entertainment is still not their strongest suit. Apple TV still hasn't really caught on, and I don't think it really ever will. It's the one area Microsoft definitely has them whooped, and cable boxes themselves are evolving to the point where Apple TV will largely be seen as a redundant device.