For the most part it doesn't matter to me really. It's more powerful than the PS3 and I'm content with the performance of the latter, so in this sense I''m cool with the system in its current form. I will admit that I do not care for the tablet, so in that sense I'd prefer it was 'normal' since they could have invested the resources into better hardware. The controller is a big reason why I have not bought a Wii U yet. I don't want to spend money on something I won't use (often) and on top of that I have to buy the pro controller separately.

link please? and the gpu/cpu are already strong enough to run any 8th gen game, why waste money increasing their power?

The gamecube would have been perfect....if they haven't gone with that idoitic 1.2 gig a disc streadgy :/

I decided to get a Wii U because I was ready fro a jump to HD, as it turns out, the controller is a much better reason for the upgrade than the HD output. Predictably, HD vs SD graphics doesn't really do anything for the experience other than the occasional and very brief "That looks very nice!" moment. Of course, as most of you will learn sooner or later, the way things look have very limited appeal, true enjoyment of anything comes from the substance (Yes, this is even true about women).

Anyway, I digress. I wound't care one way or another if the Wii U was less powerful, more powerful, or world record powerful. If I have to chose between the excellent controller or more 'power' I will chose the controller every time.

Yes, it would mean more games coming over from third parties. At the moment the Wii U is stuck between a rock and a hard place.. not quite powerful enough to separate it from the HD twins, and not strong enough to handle all the next gen engines.

I'd pick more games and more power for devs over a tablet controller. Any day.

For those saying the Gamepad ads $100 to the console, it doesn't. It was suggested that a replacement Pad would cost $100 at retail. It's build cost is surely much lower and dropping. And if you don't have a Pad, you need another controller in it's place. Just using made-up estimates, the Pad probably costs about $75 to make, while a pro-controller costs about $25. A more fancy controller like Dual Shock 4 is probably about $35 or more. So ditching the Pad would only give Nintendo around $50 or less extra to spend on specs. That could have a nice impact with a little more RAM and a slightly better GPU, but it wouldn't be anything many would notice. A better approach would be to keep the Pad (or something similar but maybe smaller) and up the specs a little but hide the costs in an online subscription like Sony did with PS4. Upping the specs a little probably wouldn't bring more 3rd party support because the main reasons games are skipping Wii U is low install base and tough competition from Nintendo 1st party - not specs. Watch_Dogs is there...any current game could be there.

The Wii U is what it is and im fine with that, i like the direction Nintendo are going. At the end of the day it is all about the games. If Nintendo can pump out games like they have been doing for 3DS, it will head in the right direction. It is ok having the mightiest specs of all time, but it dont mean a thing if the games are shite.

For example: Resident 4 on GC require two disc as for the PS2 version only require one.

One guy mentioned disc swapping.  I've never seen that as a problem.  My problem is with games like SSX 2 where the Gamecube version was missing all of the bonus features or games like True Crime where the city wasn't as big and almost half the music listed in the manual weren't in the game.  I wound up trading my Gamecube copy of True Crime for the PS2 version.

fair enough