“The Wii U GPU is several generations ahead of the current gen. It allows many things that were not possible on consoles before. If you develop for Wii U you have to take advantage of these possibilities, otherwise your performance is of course limited. Also your engine layout needs to be different. You need to take advantage of the large shared memory of the Wii U, the huge and very fast EDRAM section and the big CPU caches in the cores. Especially the workings of the CPU caches are very important to master. Otherwise you can lose a magnitude of power for cache relevant parts of your code. In the end the Wii U specs fit perfectly together and make a very efficient console when used right.”

http://hdwarriors.com/wii-u-specs-fit-perfectly-together-gpu-several-generations-ahead-of-current-gen/

This along with statements that by Criterion Games, 5th Cell, and Trine 2 develper Frozenbyte studios that the Wii U definitely pushes past it's current weight class if developer used the system properly should appease current WiiU owners (while disgusting the Wii U haters).  My opinion, the Wii U is transitional in terms of hardware; akin to the Dreamcast.  It has the potential to be more capable than the current-gen systems PS360; yet won't be as powerful as the upcoming gen.  So what's your take?  Please no flaming or trolling so play nice.

Akin to the dreamcast....I hope not...

I never consider the Wii U to be in the XboxOne and PS4 race, I always saw the Wii brand as its own thing and that what I love it about it. Even thought its rare most of the time, it always offer something different compare to the other consoles. I always found the PS3 and 360 as mostly similar with some noticeable different, which always annoyed me a bit.

:D This gonna be good.

At least 1st party games will be and look great I guess... Though, we won't see many 3rd parties taking advantage of this.

If we're defining generation by time, it's current gen

If we're defining generation by class of hardware power, it's last-gen

No one defines generation by how difficult it is to extract all the performance, like the article implies. If that were true, PS3 is part of the twenty-third generation.

lol...in terms of hardware capabilities contrasting it to PS360 and PS4/XB1.   I think 3DS (Wii U) vs PSP (PS360) is actually a much better comparison since early 3DS games (before RE:R) didn't show much of an improvement (even worse in some cases) than the PSP.  You could say that about PS4/XB1 being the Vita compared to Wii U (3DS) as well in the upcoming console war.

I know...despite the fact that one faction (Sony fans and MS fans) clamoring one system was more powerful than the others there was no clear cut diffrence.  In fact, after picking up the X360s as my second console; it gave me no reason to pick up the PS3 as they offered the same exact experience espcially in multi-plat games.  This gen I am a bit confused on what to pick up PS4 or XB1 for my second system for multi-plats though.

It's Shin'en.

So are you trying to say the 3DS is last gen hardware wise?  Since looking at specs on paper it's quite close to the PSP yet pushes past it (albeit not as conclusive) after a year or two: