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[BurntPork]

But even IF your prediction on power is true (WiiU 1.8 to 2.2 times as powerful as 360 and PS4/Xbox-3 9 to 11 times 360) that still wouldn't be anywhere near the same hardware gap as last gen with Wii vs PS3/360 (360 is at least 10 times as powerful as Wii). Also as people have said here in the past Wii's old graphics architecture was the biggest reason it got so few of the big multi platform games, not power. A game designed for a GCN DX11 based GPU isn't going to be difficult to get running on a R700 DX10.1 based GPU (if WiiU's GPU is really based on that). I mean plenty of PC games will run on both, the same couldn't be said for games designed around DX9/10 and the DX7 level GPU in Wii.

My own prediction is that WiiU will be more like 3 times 360 and the next Sony/MS consoles will be 2-3 times as powerful as WiiU.

A 5x gap would still be big enough to hinder it greatly. Bringing up PCs is pointless, since consoles are the lead platform 99.9% of the time, and you're also forgetting that PCs will keep advancing as well. Many serious devs will be frustrated if 2009 tech holds back their 2013 machines, and then further holds back their 2016 PCs. On the consumer side, Wii U games will look a lot worse than other versions, which may affect the experience enough that most people will just buy one of the other consoles. Then Wii U multiplat games won't sell enough to be worth it, and support will dry up. The only way Nintendo could partially avoid this would be to give Wii U a 4-year life span.

Wii U won't be "safe" unless it's 5x the current gen while the others are 10x or less. 8x the current gen is the absolute minimum we'll see from Sony and MS.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Well that about wraps it up for Nintendo.

I think it's only logical that the Wii U will be discontinued by spring of 2012.

 

[Gravijah]

they should make it over 9000x more power level than current gen pcs

 

[brain_stew]

Putting aside the inanity of "X times as powerful", do you think WiiU will be playing PS3/360-caliber games that look a bit better and run a bit smoother, or do you think it will play Loop/PS4 games that look significantly worse?

It will quite clearly be both.

 

[BurntPork]

Well that about wraps it up for Nintendo.

I think it's only logical that the Wii U will be discontinued by spring of 2012.

Way to look WAY too much into what I said and completely misinterpret it...

 

[AceBandage]

they should make it over 9000x more power level than current gen pcs

What?! 9000?!

 

[Donnie]

A 5x gap would still be big enough to hinder it greatly. Bringing up PCs is pointless, since consoles are the lead platform 99.9% of the time, and you're also forgetting that PCs will keep advancing as well.

My point wasn't about the lead platform, it was about ease of porting. This generation porting a game, such as Arkham City for instance, to Wii meant making an entirely new game because of the two totally different architectures between Wii and 360/PS3 (fixed function vs fully programmable). That makes it a relatively expensive project (in comparison to porting a 360 game to PS3 for instance) which required decent sales to make it profitable, that's why it isn't done often. Next gen a top tier XBox3/PS4 engine would at most need only to be modified to get it running on WiiU. Also a lot of those games will be ported to the PC and you can bet they'll run on a DX10 level card, you can then use some of that work to produce a WiiU version. That's going to be much cheaper and with the cost of developing these games being pretty huge any inexpensive port job will be a favourable move for a publisher, even if the sales aren't great. So IMO ease of porting and consequently the willingness of a developer/publisher to port to WiiU will be very different than it is for Wii this gen.

 

[DCKing]

A 5x gap would still be big enough to hinder it greatly.

Your 5x number is pretty useless here if you don't say what it means. Given a lack of Cell-like CPUs next generation, nearly all graphics processing will be done on the GPU. Therefore, the CPU matters very little in this equation, and should barely be considered.

It'll be determined based on memory and GPU alone. Let's suppose for easiness that all three manufacturers pick a GCN architecture made by AMD. The Wii U will likely be equipped with something like 512 SPUs / 32 TMUs / 16 ROPs @ ~600 MHz (which would roughly match the RV770LE in power). Now, I see MS and Sony being able to double those figures. What I don't see is them pushing their hardware much further than that. Even on 28nm, which is by far the most likely process node for the PS4 and Nextbox, a chip with over a 1000 SPUs will get large and unwieldy. I just don't see Sony and Microsoft trying to go for large, troubled hardware designs again next generation. Now, if they have GPUs that have twice the 'capacity', then it will be no problem to downscale some rescources, and still have the game look pretty on Wii U. I mean, the Xbox GPU was much more powerful than the PS2 GPU and capable of many more effects, but ports were still decent enough.

The thing I think that will be the most crucial here is memory. The rumoured 1 GB is a smaller upgrade compared to the PS360 when compared to the upgrade the GPU will be. It's actually a pretty low amount, and I do think it's possible for Sony and MS to go for 4 GB. That is quite a difference, and that could force developers to downscale their games horribly. Let's hope Nintendo makes the call to double the Wii U memory to 2 GB still. Come on, panic mode Nintendo.

 

[MDX]

First of all, we're not getting a 4890. Between yeilds (which is something that no amount of customization can fix) and power consumption, it can't happen. Not even Sony of Microsoft would aim for such a high clock. It's stupid, it's unreliable, it's hot, it's power hungry, it's not happening.

Well thats good to know. That brings all three consoles relatively close to the same clock speeds. I have no problem speculating it around 700.

 

[Fourth Storm]

I think Nintendo could go with GCN if it really means less silicon/power consumption. That 770LE was perhaps used in devkits as a ballpark for performance. I don't think AMD has any other card available with that particular clockspeed and SPU count. And the 256 bit GDDR3 (surely not happening considering the complex nature of that bus) would be in the ballpark of GDDR5 on a 128bit bus. So yeah, I think the 2009 GPU was just the easiest and quickest way for developers to get started.

 

[Übermatik]

taking the whole less powerful thing seriously for a moment (roflmaolol), I would fully expect Nintendo's next console to drop the Wii name and the approach to hardware the company has adopted over the past few years.
On a graphical par, or maybe even superior to it's rivals, with a new brand, new name.
That said, in attempting to capture the hardcore generation this time around with the WiiU, and having secured the casual audience with the Wii, the next system should be an amalgamation of everything Nintendo has achieved over the past 10 years.

Also, Ace, what's with the Ambassador icons?

 

[AceBandage]

Nintendo's next system (after Wii U) will be holographic projecting handheld.
>_>

 

[brain_stew]

A 5x gap would still be big enough to hinder it greatly. Bringing up PCs is pointless, since consoles are the lead platform 99.9% of the time, and you're also forgetting that PCs will keep advancing as well. Many serious devs will be frustrated if 2009 tech holds back their 2013 machines, and then further holds back their 2016 PCs. On the consumer side, Wii U games will look a lot worse than other versions, which may affect the experience enough that most people will just buy one of the other consoles. Then Wii U multiplat games won't sell enough to be worth it, and support will dry up. The only way Nintendo could partially avoid this would be to give Wii U a 4-year life span.

Wii U won't be "safe" unless it's 5x the current gen while the others are 10x or less. 8x the current gen is the absolute minimum we'll see from Sony and MS.

You can get around as much as a 4x difference with simple things like halving the rendering resolution, dropping from 60fps to 30fps, cutting texture resolution, tweaking LODs and the precision of your shaders. Have a look at the multiplats on Vita to see how a similar sort of gap can be overcome.

Developers will be targeting the same development paradigm allowing them to share code and assets between the platforms. Are certain issues going to crop up later in the generation? Absolutely, but its not going to be an impossible task like it was this generation.

Outside of proper tessellation and displacement maps, there's going to be very little that can't be adequately recreated on the Wii U at lower precision. Whereas this generation, there were all sorts of things that were simply impossible (or at least highly unfeasible like proper normal maps) on the Wii.

 

[EloquentM]

I hope wiiU feels like the SNES/N64/GCN ( a nintendo system) instead of a wii type system. Something about the wii just always felt off to me.

 

[sfried]

What?! 9000?!

I hope our bodies can take it during the re-unveil.

 

[AceBandage]

I hope our bodies can take it during the re-unveil.

*crushes computer* That's... IMPOSSIBLE!

 

[brain_stew]

People really need to nip this GCN speculation in the bud. It isn't happening.

 

[AceBandage]

People really need to nip this GCN speculation in the bud. It isn't happening.

I'll nip you in the bud, bud.

 

[Xun]

I hope wiiU feels like the SNES/N64/GCN ( a nintendo system) instead of a wii type system. Something about the wii just always felt off to me.

Same.

It lacks the magic.

 

[guek]

Personally, I feel like dev costs are going to be the limiting factor next gen, not hardware specs. You could give devs the power to render something on par with avatar in realtime and maybe 1 or 2 devs the entire gen would go be able to achieve that level of fidelity simply because of costs. We're going to start approaching the point where games can still look better but don't really have to in order to be adequate.

 

[AceBandage]

Same.

It lacks the magic.

I've got your magic...

 

[DCKing]

People really need to nip this GCN speculation in the bud. It isn't happening.

If you could tell us why, I'd consider it. Repeating why it's stupid to think so without giving any reason is just plain annoying and unhelpful.

 

[BurntPork]

Your 5x number is pretty useless here if you don't say what it means. Given a lack of Cell-like CPUs next generation, nearly all graphics processing will be done on the GPU. Therefore, the CPU matters very little in this equation, and should barely be considered.

It'll be determined based on memory and GPU alone. Let's suppose for easiness that all three manufacturers pick a GCN architecture made by AMD. The Wii U will likely be equipped with something like 512 SPUs / 32 TMUs / 16 ROPs @ ~600 MHz (which would roughly match the RV770LE in power). Now, I see MS and Sony being able to double those figures. What I don't see is them pushing their hardware much further than that. Even on 28nm, which is by far the most likely process node for the PS4 and Nextbox, a chip with over a 1000 SPUs will get large and unwieldy. I just don't see Sony and Microsoft trying to go for large, troubled hardware designs again next generation. Now, if they have GPUs that have twice the 'capacity', then it will be no problem to downscale some rescources, and still have the game look pretty on Wii U. I mean, the Xbox GPU was much more powerful than the PS2 GPU and capable of many more effects, but ports were still decent enough.

The thing I think that will be the most crucial here is memory. The rumoured 1 GB is a smaller upgrade compared to the PS360 when compared to the upgrade the GPU will be. It's actually a pretty low amount, and I do think it's possible for Sony and MS to go for 4 GB. That is quite a difference, and that could force developers to downscale their games horribly. Let's hope Nintendo makes the call to double the Wii U memory to 2 GB still. Come on, panic mode Nintendo.

I figured that it would be assumed that I meant the GPU.

And if you honestly think that Sony and MS won't go over 1000 SPUs, you're fooling yourself. I'd say that 960 would be the minimum for them. You're setting yourself up for disappointment if you think Sony and MS won't go as far as reasonably possible.

 

[Xun]

I've got your magic...

Mario fucking Yoshi from behind? Great.

 

[wazoo]

I hope wiiU feels like the SNES/N64/GCN ( a nintendo system) instead of a wii type system. Something about the wii just always felt off to me.

I hope WiiU will be a succesful console, not a member of the downward spiral of shrinking audience you want it to be.

Wii had much more magic in term of being a Nintendo system than the GC or N64. IMO.

 

[wazoo]

how much SPUs to have this running in HD ??

I've got your magic...

 

[Dreamwriter]

Personally, I feel like dev costs are going to be the limiting factor next gen, not hardware specs. You could give devs the power to render something on par with avatar in realtime and maybe 1 or 2 devs the entire gen would go be able to achieve that level of fidelity simply because of costs. We're going to start approaching the point where games can still look better but don't really have to in order to be adequate.

Exactly, this is my argument - heck, we're already there. I mean, why don't all PS3 games look as good as the first Uncharted? Why don't all XBox 360 games look as good as the first Gears of War? Because it costs a LOT of money to makes games that really take advantage of the console's power these days, and consumers are happy to buy games that don't have top tier graphics.

A console could be powerful enough to render Pixar movies in realtime, but you know what, Pixar movies cost tens of millions to make - Toy Story 3 cost $75 million - and most of that money is artists making and animating models. The more detail a system can render, the more detail developers have to put into their games to make full use of that power. As long as the Wii-U can do XBox 360/PS3 quality games, but at 1080p at 60fps, the Wii will be able to do 95% of the games that come out for a PS4/XBox 720 and look at least as-good, even if those systems were 10 times more powerful than the Wii-U.

 

[Donnie]

I figured that it would be assumed that I meant the GPU.

And if you honestly think that Sony and MS won't go over 1000 SPUs, you're fooling yourself. I'd say that 960 would be the minimum for them. You're setting yourself up for disappointment if you think Sony and MS won't go as far as reasonably possible.

I think they can go over 1000 certainly, I think they could very well go to 1408 at 700Mhz, but I seriously doubt it'll have more than that. Where as I'm guessing at 640 at 600Mhz for WiiU.

 

[DCKing]

And if you honestly think that Sony and MS won't go over 1000 SPUs, you're fooling yourself. I'd say that 960 would be the minimum for them. You're setting yourself up for disappointment if you think Sony and MS won't go as far as reasonably possible.

I'm not saying they won't go over 1000. I'm saying they won't get to, say, 1536. The 7970 is a large chip with 2048 SPUs at 378mm^2 on a 28 nm node. MS and Sony must go for chips half that size, and they won't get anything better than 28 nm to work with.

Honestly I think it'll be 1024 SPUs for the Xbox. Any GPU in that range won't humiliate the Wii U.

 

[BurntPork]

You can get around as much as a 4x difference with simple things like halving the rendering resolution, dropping from 60fps to 30fps, cutting texture resolution, tweaking LODs and the precision of your shaders. Have a look at the multiplats on Vita to see how a similar sort of gap can be overcome.

You're acting as if no one would notice all of that. They would, especially the frame rate. And playing at half of 720p on a 1080p screen would be just as bad as playing 480p on a 720p screen, meaning Wii all over again. Would you bother playing games on Wii U with it cut down like that, or would you just play it the way it's meant to be played on another platform?

Developers will be targeting the same development paradigm allowing them to share code and assets between the platforms. Are certain issues going to crop up later in the generation? Absolutely, but its not going to be an impossible task like it was this generation.

Outside of proper tessellation and displacement maps, there's going to be very little that can't be adequately recreated on the Wii U at lower precision. Whereas this generation, there were all sorts of things that were simply impossible (or at least highly unfeasible like proper normal maps) on the Wii.

But if the games don't sell, it's a moot point because it still requires extra work and money with little-to-no return on the investment.

Spoiler

That's not even considering devs who just don't like Nintendo.

I'm not saying they won't go over 1000. I'm saying they won't get to, say, 1536. The 7970 is a large chip with 2048 SPUs at 378mm^2 on a 28 nm node. MS and Sony must go for chips half that size, and they won't get anything better than 28 nm to work with.

Honestly I think it'll be 1024 SPUs for the Xbox. Any GPU in that range won't humiliate the Wii U.

I'd wait to see the size on the 28nm Cayman die shrink before drawing such conclusions.

 

[Donnie]

But if the games don't sell, it's a moot point because it still requires extra work and money with little-to-no return on the investment.

Obviously they'll sell, the only question is how many copies. The point a few of us are trying to make is that the cost of porting from XBox3 to WiiU will be nowhere near as much as it cost to port a game from 360 to Wii. That means far less sales are required to make that port profitable, which will make publishers much more likely to port those games.

 

[lwilliams3]

A 5x gap would still be big enough to hinder it greatly. Bringing up PCs is pointless, since consoles are the lead platform 99.9% of the time, and you're also forgetting that PCs will keep advancing as well. Many serious devs will be frustrated if 2009 tech holds back their 2013 machines, and then further holds back their 2016 PCs. On the consumer side, Wii U games will look a lot worse than other versions, which may affect the experience enough that most people will just buy one of the other consoles. Then Wii U multiplat games won't sell enough to be worth it, and support will dry up. The only way Nintendo could partially avoid this would be to give Wii U a 4-year life span.

Wii U won't be "safe" unless it's 5x the current gen while the others are 10x or less. 8x the current gen is the absolute minimum we'll see from Sony and MS.

I think you underestimate how many third party developers would have ported over more multi-platform games to the Wii if it was just a serious problem with its raw power. Wii's shader architecture is the same as Gamecube's, which came out a little bit before GPU's commonly had the "programmable shaders" that we know of now. The TEVs that the Gamecube used were not even commonly used outside of Nintendo and Factor 5 during its lifetime, and the way they work were too different be compatible to the 360/PS3 game engines.

For the Wii U vs the other next-gen consoles, porting down to the Wii U will not have nearly as many issues even if the system was just as powerful as the 360.

Edit: Wow, I was late. Brain-stew already replied to you.

 

[Refreshment.01]

Personally, I feel like dev costs are going to be the limiting factor next gen, not hardware specs.

Because it costs a LOT of money to makes games that really take advantage of the console's power these days, and consumers are happy to buy games that don't have top tier graphics.

Sometimes i would like this argument to jump of a cliff and land on top of hot red burning spikes.

You could take a game with the graphical complexity of the ones we have in consoles right now and it would look significantly better with more advanced graphical effects and better image quality. This wouldnt cost a cent more than what devs invest in these things.

Then you have stuff like true HD, the increasing amount of games that feauture stereoscopy 3D and the potential to run at 60 FPS. Or just look how limited devs are in consoles with sand box games like GTA, for example. Extra processing power will help the games even while maitining the same complexity the industry achieves now in general.

 

[crazy monkey]

Mario fucking Yoshi from behind? Great.

in space while flying and with rainbows. No one can match that. No one.

 

[BurntPork]

Of course the games will sell, the only question is how many copies and how many copies are required to make a profit. The point a few of us are trying to make is that the cost of porting from XBox3 to WiiU will be nowhere near as much as it cost to port a game from 360 to Wii. That means far less sales are required to make that port profitable, which will make publishers much more likely to port those games.

MW3 Wii accounted for less than 1.1% of the MW3 total. The only reason that was worth it was because it's CoD and 1.1% = 100k. How would that look for AC:R, which would have sold less than 14k? Wii U might improve that percentage, or it might make it worse due to lower sales. Even so, what's the best we could hope for when the Wii U versions are completely inferior? 5%?

 

[EloquentM]

I hope WiiU will be a succesful console, not a member of the downward spiral of shrinking audience you want it to be.

Wii had much more magic in term of being a Nintendo system than the GC or N64. IMO.

Oh wow. My apologies for pissing in your cereal.

 

[AzaK]

taking the whole less powerful thing seriously for a moment (roflmaolol), I would fully expect Nintendo's next console to drop the Wii name and the approach to hardware the company has adopted over the past few years.
On a graphical par, or maybe even superior to it's rivals, with a new brand, new name.
That said, in attempting to capture the hardcore generation this time around with the WiiU, and having secured the casual audience with the Wii, the next system should be an amalgamation of everything Nintendo has achieved over the past 10 years.

Also, Ace, what's with the Ambassador icons?

Dude, I so, so wish this is their approach. Throw the Wii paranoia and approaches out the window.

 

[AceBandage]

Also, Ace, what's with the Ambassador icons?

We are, Ambassadors!
*salute*

 

[Log4Girlz]

I don't care what anyone else thinks, but upgradeable ram would be cool. We live in a different age where the uptake on such a thing would be massive. I hate when people bring up the N64 when it was a vastly different era.

Save money now, create a tight, efficient system, upgrade later. I mean, you can already add an HDD, let me slap in more RAM 2 years from now to keep up with the Jones'. Start with 1 or 1.5 GB and add another 1 to 1.5 GB later. I don't care if you don't like this idea, it would be awesome! *sobs*

 

[lwilliams3]

MW3 Wii accounted for less than 1.1% of the MW3 total. The only reason that was worth it was because it's CoD and 1.1% = 100k. How would that look for AC:R, which would have sold less than 14k? Wii U might improve that percentage, or it might make it worse due to lower sales. Even so, what's the best we could hope for when the Wii U versions are completely inferior? 5%?

I believe the point is that developers may still be willing to port the game to the Wii U even if it has lower sales potential due to it being much easier to port up (3DS, PSVITA, 360, PS3, iPhones) or down (Xbox720, PS4, PC, maybe future iPhones) to the system compared to what had to be done to port to the Wii. As long as it is easy and cheap to port to, Wii U ports can still potentially give them profit.

 

[AceBandage]

I don't care what anyone else thinks, but upgradeable ram would be cool. We live in a different age where the uptake on such a thing would be massive. I hate when people bring up the N64 when it was a vastly different era.

Save money now, create a tight, efficient system, upgrade later. I mean, you can already add an HDD, let me slap in more RAM 2 years from now to keep up with the Jones'. Start with 1 or 1.5 GB and add another 1 to 1.5 GB later. I don't care if you don't like this idea, it would be awesome! *sobs*

Problem is you then create a console that is an open platform for development.
Not a closed one that you can build for specifically.
Thus, taking away the entire advantage console development has.

 

[TunaLover]

It will be like Wii, all over again =/
I'm not too worried by graphics myself, it just the "underpowered" argument will be used again to skip Wii U development altogether.

 

[AceBandage]

It will be like Wii, all over again =/
I'm not too worried by graphics myself, it just the "underpowered" argument will be used again to skip Wii U development altogether.

It's not, though...
The Wii wasn't capable of anything that the 360/PS3 could do.
That was the problem.

As long as the Wii U can run the engines, it'll get the games.

 

[TunaLover]

It's not, though...
The Wii wasn't capable of anything that the 360/PS3 could do.
That was the problem.

As long as the Wii U can run the engines, it'll get the games.

We don't know how will be the power reach of 720/PS4.

 

[blu]

You're acting as if no one would notice all of that. They would, especially the frame rate.

You're acting as if the few people on message boards who will notice and go vocal about that will matter.

And playing at half of 720p on a 1080p screen would be just as bad as playing 480p on a 720p screen, meaning Wii all over again. Would you bother playing games on Wii U with it cut down like that, or would you just play it the way it's meant to be played on another platform?

So all the people buying the 'inferior' ps360 versions of all those Calls of Duties, Battlefields and Batmans versus getting the 'definitive' PC versions are what - misguided morons? Has it ever occurred to you that they might not be giving a flying duck about that?

But if the games don't sell, it's a moot point because it still requires extra work and money with little-to-no return on the investment. That's not even considering devs who just don't like Nintendo.

So, why would it not sell again? And of course you keep thinking in Wii terms where entire production pipelines had to be reinvented to downport from the ps360. That won't be the case with WiiU. Not getting a multiplat on the WiiU, given the very same production pipelines will be used, and assets will largely be shared, will be idiotic. People keep telling you that and you keep ignoring them.

ps: what's with the random spoilertags?

 

[AceBandage]

We don't know how will be the power reach of 720/PS4.

We don't have to...
There is no GPU out, or coming out, that will be able to do a mountain of stuff that the Wii U's GPU can't do.

 

[TunaLover]

We don't have to...
There is no GPU out, or coming out, that will be able to do a mountain of stuff that the Wii U's GPU can't do.

I hope you're right Ace... I hope you're right... u__u

 

[brain_stew]

You're acting as if no one would notice all of that. They would, especially the frame rate. And playing at half of 720p on a 1080p screen would be just as bad as playing 480p on a 720p screen, meaning Wii all over again. Would you bother playing games on Wii U with it cut down like that, or would you just play it the way it's meant to be played on another platform?



But if the games don't sell, it's a moot point because it still requires extra work and money with little-to-no return on the investment.

Spoiler

That's not even considering devs who just don't like Nintendo.

I'd wait to see the size on the 28nm Cayman die shrink before drawing such conclusions.

This isn't a sales thread. The consideration for this thread is, could such an approach to multi platform development be technically feasible. I believe it is because the same scenario is actually happening right now across the PC/PS3/360/Vita.

 

[Donnie]

MW3 Wii accounted for less than 1.1% of the MW3 total. The only reason that was worth it was because it's CoD and 1.1% = 100k. How would that look for AC:R, which would have sold less than 14k? Wii U might improve that percentage, or it might make it worse due to lower sales. Even so, what's the best we could hope for when the Wii U versions are completely inferior? 5%?

Do you agree that much easier/cheaper porting will make publishers much more likely to port to a system? If so then its not sensible to come to the conclusion that WiiU will be in basically the same situation as Wii when it comes to ports from its competitors consoles IMO. Its really hard to tell how well it'll do, but one things for sure, in this respect it'll be very different to Wii.

By the way not all games follow that pattern (MW4 sold nearly 9% of its total on Wii, 1.4m copies world wide). Also WiiU isn't Wii, it won't have the "motion controls only" thing hanging over it (something that helped it to be successful but also hindered ports of a lot of 360/PS3 games).

 

[hellclerk]

I hope you're right Ace... I hope you're right... u__u

He is right, Tuna. There literally is nothing that Microsoft or Sony could put together for under $1000 that would be able to outclass the Wii in such a manner. The technological reason that the Wii couldn't compete with current gen consoles wasn't the raw numbers, it was the simple feature of programmable shaders. Game rendering technology is currently very dependent on this hardware feature, and because the Wii GPU featured fixed shaders, albeit with its TEV unit (not the same!), coders were unable to move code wholesale from one platform to another without wholesale visual downgrades. Certainly, there would be higher end games, like BF3 that the system wouldn't be able to run (and run on consoles through some Swedish voodoo magic), but on the whole, programmable shaders make all the difference in technology in graphical processing.

As to what we know about the WiiU now, we know that any grand leap in technology isn't coming along for at least three or four years at the earliest, so any tech made within the next couple of years, even if it's on the bleeding edge, won't be able to outclass the WiiU any better than the PS3 was able to outclass the 360.

And here's the most important part: the WiiU is coming out first, and as thus has the highest potential to set the narrative for the generation, much like the 360 set the narrative in 2005. Things would have been different for the Wii if it had launched first. The WiiU being a more capable machine is the important element to that.