hmmm my guess is whatever they have in that box won't be enough to be a big selling point for 12 month until next gen... what we'll see at launch we'll be on par or slightly better... maybe some bigger leaps mid year next year... and by holliday season 2013 we'll probably will have so much hype on next gen XB and PS that it won't matter.... but once again i think there is way enough place for 3 players especially since WiiU has a slightly different core audience than the 2 other and that's true for gaming features as well as services and at different target price...

So much better of a guess than most of everyone else is saying and I've seen you say some negative things here and there.  

I think too many people are making their judgements based on what they see currently on the Wii U and make assumptions as well about how hard the Wii U works running these things (which I am pretty sure most devs of the better looking games says that they run pretty easily on the Wii U), then they also try to put in the thing about the CPU which we don't really know about.  

Thanks. At launch we could see up to 3x more power, but after a few years off optimization, we could very much see 3.5x or 4x more power.

Just like the Wii was.  Almost all of the X360 launch games looked significantly better than the generation prior.  It was immediately noticeable  that Microsofts new console was far more powerful than their previous one.  On the other hand, there isn't a single launch Wii U game that looks noticeably better than current gen.  Imagine every X360 game looking, at best, like Gun.  That's Wii U.  That's the difference. 

Nintendo isn't changing their strategy, even keeping the Wii name.  They've gone out of their way to tell us not to look at graphics, just gameplay.  I don't see what's so difficult in understanding that this is the exact same thing Nintendo did 6 years ago.

Enough to hold a candle against PS4.

I think the RAM and limited information on the GPGPU alone is indicative of this size of jump, and hey, I've said plenty positive things too :p

20% more powerful

Comparing (presumed) GPU against PS360 I'd say about 2-3 times, so I have no doubt WiiU games will look better than twins. That said, I suspect at least X720 to be around same 2-3 times more powerful than WiiU, which by itself might not be such a huge problem for developers using current-gen engines who want to port to WiiU. Where I see potential problem is with developers using high-end next-gen engines and pushing them to max for X720/PS4, and then not being able to properly scale them down (or seeing it as not cost effective).

2 to 3 times. What will Nintendo do with all of this power? Good things.

If the Wii U is a graphical beast than Nintendo would be bragging it up and showing it off. Instead we have silence from Nintendo, not so positive rumors from devs, and games that only look marginally better than PS360. When the Xbox 360 came out it's games looked crazy good compared to the previous gen. When the Wii came out the games look a little better than the previous gen. Right now the Wii U games only look a little better than the current gen.

 Is the Wii U more powerful than PS360? Of course it is. Will Nintendo games still be as good as ever? Yes, and I can't wait for 3D Mario, Zelda and Metroid. But is the Wii U the generational leap that the NextBox and PS4 will be? Not from what I've seen.

1gb of usable RAM or any speed and a decent GPU is great for what the Wii U is meant to be, but the NextBox and PS4 will almost certainly have extremely powerful CPUs, even more RAM, and more than decent GPUs.

What the above chart illustrates is that MS and Sony double their graphical rendering capabilities from generation to generation while Nintendo stopped doing that with the Wii. I have seen nothing to make me believe that Nintendo double the PS360's power. More than likely they doubled the Wii's power, which will put them in a similar situation when the Nextbox and PS4 do double the PS360.

The thing I want you to understand about me is this. I love Nintendo and will buy a Wii U for the same reason I've bought all Nintendo systems. Mario, Zelda and Metroid are my gaming bread and butter. It doesn't really matter to me if the Wii U is super powerful or not. So long as it remains the only place to play Nintendo games I will be there. But, other than Nintendo 1st party games and a few rare exclusives I didn't buy much else on the Wii and I expect the same of the Wii U. As always I will have all three, but while I buy plenty of 3rd party games on MS and Sony consoles the Wii U will be a Nintendo box to me.