If you want to really get technical there are at least 4 major vendors which would be capable of doing the graphics and which hold numerous substantial I.P. whilst also containing the development talent to produce something that complicated.

1. AMD first choice
2. nVidia
3. IMGtech (handheld, biggest handheld GPU maker), another option for a Wii replacement. They make the PowerVR series IIRC.
4. Intel

BTW I wouldn't be too hasty to write nVidia off with Sony. From what the rumours say, the PSP2 has a Tegra 2 chipset in it. Maybe Sony is pissed at how delayed it is or something, Charlie wrote an article on that.

I had considered Imagination Technlogies and Intel but I don't think their tech will be up to it within 3 years. Intel won't have discrete graphics until at least 2014 (Larrabee doesn't perform well enough outside HPC yet), and their integrated graphics and Larrabee both consume unreasonable amounts of power. Imagination's highest-end chipset performs worse than the Wii, which is itself five or six years behind PC cards.

Maybe Nintendo could use Imagination, but Sony and MS will want the most performance they can get.

Charlie says Sony did drop Nvidia from PSP2. Another reason why they'd be upset with Nvidia.

Truth!

:D

Logical choice would be AMD(ATI) as usual since their design has always been ahead of anybody else on a hardware level. Since this is console we are talking about, there is no uh, driver issues, Nintendo would be working on the SDK directly from the hardware. If Nintendo puts in a DX11(or 11.1 or 12) class video chipset in their next console with good tess power with a basic APU design and high speed memory, it'd rock really hard without costing too much and also power efficient.

I posted that I thought everything would be AMD earlier; I'm going in circles...

3rd party developers arent drawn to the Wii , in a gen where a flop can very easily mean your studio gets shut down (as happened with maaaannnnnyy back in 2007-8). The budget of TODAYS games require sales of a substantial amount, but not so on the Wii. Despite that, the console is not a developers favorite, by and large.

And if things continue this way, i can still see the 720/PS4 surviving and remaining competitive by capturing the "hardcore, dudebro"  audience. Its this very issue that is preventing the Wii from utterly dominating like the PS2 last gen.

Obviously Nintendo will come out first next gen, how soon? nobody knows, Nintendo can do what MS. did with the Xbox, who knows. and look how that turned out to be, they beat Sony to it, forcing them to prematurely release an unfinished PS3..Who ever comes out first has the better chance to suceed, Nintendo is unpredictable of all three companys, nobody knows what Nintendo is up too, they dont reveal anything until the last minute, A few month back lots of ppl were saying why Nintendo will make a new handheld system when DS sales are still going strong and that those 3ds stories were only rumors, what happend now? Sony is forced to counter attact with the Psp2 .

Anybody that reveals or unveil their console first, others are forced to follow no matter what, currently they are just playing the waiting game..All three companys have insiders, they all trying to predict what the next move thier competitors are going to do next.

If Nintendo want they can take the world by surprise and reveal the Wii2 on E3 2011 and have it ready by fall 2011 why not? Nintendo is a big company and gaming is what they do best, thier primary focus is gaming only unlike MS nad Sony, they can support both 3DS and Wii2 at the same time if they wanted too and that will not distract one from another,(car makers don't release one model at a time a year) firstly, they are too different system for two different customers, or they can buy both.

Nintendo will make their next Wii2 double the power compared to this current gen or slightly more why? because this gen alone lack of memory is outstanding...both the 360 and the ps3 are choking , the lack of AI and physics you see on these HD systems is what you will get for five more years.. All Nintendo has to do is make a deal with AMD or Nvidia, whoever, buy them by truck loads at a good price, get a good GPU with 1 or 2gb of dedicated memory and add an extra 4gb for system memory for multi or general purposes (OS,CPU etc) and how expensive would be by the end of 2011 early 2012 to add a QUAD or a six core Cpu?  Nintendo can still sell a Wii 2 for a total package of $300 to $350... You think Sony and MS will stick around and wait if this happens? no, they will scramble to get their system out sooner than later.

-I think that the next gen is in NINTENDO's hands if the cards are played right ...  

Sorry but I have to say it  "next gen starts when Nintendo say so"  

As a piece of hardware, the PS3 was all that, just that all that cost a bit too much and overshot the market, Microsoft's ability to get developers familiar with 360 architecture quicker and Nintendo just comes out of nowhere and smacks the competition silly

With the PS3, Sony tried to one-up what they thought was the winning strategy for the PS2, a console that in its time was very cutting edge and rode the wave of the next big multimedia format. Their problem came from thinking in a vacuum where PlayStation defined the market, and even that wasn't too arrogant, given how thoroughly the PS2 *was* the 6th generation

The point is that it's harder to see a total game changer coming out of the pipe, and easier to predict the first mover in this generation

Then I'm just agreeing with you obviously, supporters ftw?

If all 3 consoles are close in power then wouldn't most 3rd party games be multiplats at this point anyways? then it'd come to a simple question of which first party games you want, and looking at it now, I'd pick Nintendo>SONY>>>MS with the current 1st party line ups since MS killed off so many of it's studios by now on top of the XBL cost. Though we are not there yet, this is merely my uh, 2 cents.