The WiiU doesn't generate an electric current so it must be the other

If the criteria for 8th generation is simply launch date then does that mean the revised 360 model launched late last year is 8th gen? Does a basic chinese cheap console that runs nes games but was just released last week also considered to be 8th gen despite having a performance level of the NES.

It's clear release date is a truly awful way of linking consoles together. One console could be a 1000x more powerful but they share the same generation. What is the point of that. So Ouya, wii u and PS4 are the same generation despite the Ouya not really being competitive with the games that were available on the original playstation.

Clearly the wii u is eighth generation but its performance level fits in better with the 2 most powerful consoles of the 7th generation.

I personally think it would be better to link consoles to their performance level. Both ps4 and xbox one have gpu's with over a teraflop of performance. They are the first two consoles to have that performance level. That means something. The wii u is down at 176gflops at the same approximate level as 360 and PS3 which were the first two consoles to break 100 gflops of performance. The gamecube only had 8 gflops of performance but the wii being a gamecube ran 50% faster managed to get to 12 gflops so it was in the same performance over 10 gflops performance level as the Original Xbox which was about 20 gflops. So you could represent consoles by gflops performance with each generation going up by a factor of 10. Maybe the next generation will exceed 10 teraflops.

It's unfair to consumers for the wii u to be represented as an eighth generation console as if that puts it in the same performance class as xbox one and ps4.

WiiU's performance level is well above what the PS3 and the Xbox is capable of.

Heck put Killzone Shadowfall in 720p and take off some motion effects and it'll run at 60fps on the WiiU. Giant backgrounds you cant touch and all.

Actually we don't know. Only some randoms in gaf has claimed that.

If you want to know about the WiiU I suggest you pay attention to the hackers or folk like me.

In 2014 you'll see several examples of games that are pushing the WiiU in some ways and others.

Heck you can See SM3DW running in 720p at 60 fps with a a heck of a lot of overhead due tot he power of the system and it still manages to look great due to the WiiU's internal upscaler.

People also forget the gamepad takes up some processing power. Just like the 3D on the 3DS does.

And we all know about Ironfall ( which is all in assmebly)

And Donkey Kong is 1080p 60fps on it too.

Sure, you can say it's the 8th generation of Nintendo home consoles and that it's competing for the same market share as the XB1/PS4. But "Next-gen"? No. You really have to look at the context at which the term "Next-gen" is often used. When people say "Next-gen graphics", they obviously refer to leap we see, as far graphical fidelity goes. Many times around the net, the WiiU is often omitted when speaking about Next-Gen games, or graphics. Just look at the kickstarter page for Mighty No.9; they put their current gen versions as Wii-U, PS3, and 360. The Next-Gen versions are simply PS4 and XB1. This is just one example I can think of, but I'm just demonstrating my point of context and the definition of "Next-Gen".

Sure, someone could easily point me to a few articles or developers who would include the Wii-U as Next-Gen, but there won't be many examples of it. And even then, you still have things like the latest Unreal Engines likely never to run on a Wii-U console, and games such as Tomb Raider receiving Next-Gen versions which exclude the Wii-U. Apparently, though, for the sake of argument on a sales website -- and Nintendo fan's egos -- many of you think the aforementioned 8th gen markets, where the Wii-U is competing, is the only requisite that defines the word "Next-Gen". Personally, I think it's an issue of context. And historically speaking, that's never truly been the definition of the term, given the context the gaming industry has used it.

WiiU's perfectly capable of running those things though^

Its like if Epic said the PS3 wasnt next gen last gen and decided not to put unreal on it due to how shitty unreal runs on PS3.

WiiU's designed in mind with the next gen sensibilities. Nintendo made it so the third parties could port games cheap to it.

However its not PC like, its far more customized. PS4 and Xbox behave like PC's
So its more "convenience' and less "power"
And you know how the folks at Ubisoft code for PC right? Lol. It'll be like that, but with more optimization. Which means bloated code.

If the WiiU kept getting pc downports instead of lumped in with last gen. ( when its the complete opposite in ethos) you'd have better running ports out of the gate. Less optimization needed.
Sure you can dump code on the WiiU and it'll run. You'll get stuff like how Warriors Orochi 3 or DarkSiders 2 ran though lol. Remember WiiU's CPU has a different clock rate.

In terms of specs, no. It's defnitely seventh gen material, but its Nintendos next console, so we cannot deny that its the next generation in a literal sense.

8 gen of course, like Wii was 7 gen and the power gap with PS360 was bigger than Wii U with PS4/X1.

The Nintendo Wii U is a Next-Gen console!!! A new console generation is defined by time and not by hardware power!!! And besides, the Nintendo Wii U is more powerful than the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360, maybe not much, but the Nintendo Wii U is more powerful ;) And NeoGAF is a bunch of PlayStation Fanboys who don`t know anything about videogames besides the words Sony PlayStation and the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 ;)