I will keep saying this and I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but games are the most important, not graphics. 

Nintendo will need to play a big part in accomplish that, that's for sure. Looking back at the PS2 (the weakest console in terms of power during that gen) and the console took all of the third parties attention and people didn't care the graphics were worst (just to give one example: RE 4). I'm not saying history will repeat itself with the Wii U (after all I don't have a crystal ball), but last gen brought us so many surprises that anything could happen, nothing is set in stones.

The Wii U was not engineered for a "10 year product cycle" the way the Xbox 360 and PS3 were. It will struggle, hardware wise, to run the same games that will be developed for the Xbox 3 and PS4, once developers have a handle on taking full advantage of what either platform has to offer.

Now there is always the remote possibility that either the Xbox 3 or the PS4 will be much closer in final specs to the Wii U, making port discrepancy less of an issue, but it seems unlikely either MS or SCE would attempt to sell a new box for about $100 more than the Wii U with roughly equal specs, particularly given the cost of the Game Pad controller when factoring in total per unit cost. This runs the assumption that neither the Xbox 3 nor the PS4 will be shipping every SKU with VR goggles, holographic projectors, etc. or anything that would inflate the per unit production cost.

On the plus side, Nintendo managed to sell the Wii U at $299 and $349 at launch, which will drop for later adopters making the cost less of an initial investment and should lower the bar expectation wise as to how long consumers expect the console to stay current. $300 for a console that's good for 4-5 years before a replacement is announced is not expensive by any measure.

The thing is you're assuming graphics simply = a prettier image. 

That's really not the case though, a console's horsepower dramatically impacts things like frame rate, animation, on-screen characters, scope of the world, physics, dynamic effects (explosions, weather, rain particles, etc. etc.). 

Would you want to play Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube or on the DS' chipset? 

I can't believe I agree with every single thing in a Rol post!

You're right though, I've been saying since the Wii U was unveiled that it could end up falling between markets, and indeed it has.

OP: It will be neither, sadly. I still don't understand why Nintendo have chosen to go this route at all, I really don't.

That doesn't make sense since the game was build  with a 3D environment in mind that was not possible on a DS. Developers work with the console they have in their hands. Capcom made a DS game called RE: Deadly Visions (I think) and that worked great with the DS hardware. 

Another example is Okami, the game looks gorgeous on the Wii (which is a inferior hardware to the PS360) because of it's art style. For me art style >>>> graphics. 

Call of Duty is another example. I played the PC version of Black Ops and the Wii one and for me the Wii one is better because it have pointer controls and obviously the PC version destroys it in the graphics category. 

I don't know how many times I would have to repeat myself, but for me graphics don't make a game, as long as the game works great on the hardware.

A dead runner.

I agree with everything except this.

Firstly, a sprinter doesn't necessarily run fast. There are plenty of slow sprinters. The main point is that the race is shorter and more emphasis is on the start. Granted this doesn't disprove your point at all, I just thought it was worth noting.

I don't think we can completely rule out 3rd party support for the Wii U just yet. Unlike previous generations, 3rd party exclusives are nonexistant. And unlike last generation, the Wii U may not be extremely less powerful than its competitors, at least not to the extent of the Wii and PS360. And probably not to the extent that developers would outright ignore it.

And even if the PS4 and 720 are extremely more powerful than the Wii U, I'm not so sure if the majority of developers will make games so advanced that the Wii U wouldn't even be able to run them. Perhaps the 8th gen will be the first gen where the average game isn't a drastic technological improvement over games during the previous gen, either due to cost or the diminishing returns for better graphics.

I know you believe 3rd parties have a deep hatred for Nintendo. We'll see how true that statement is this generation.

A slow sprinter is a jogger isn't it :/ I thought Sprint means to run as fast as you can lol.

Yup a person who sprint runs as fast as possible. But as fast as possible for one person could still be slow. i.e. A fat person may sprint, but he probably won't move very quickly.

Then I say the WiiU is a fat person sprinting! I think it will sell steady but not amazing and will probably sell not to much more than the vita does every week.