I bought a wii u for nintendo games because I love them. It's not a competitive console in performance. Most of the eurogamer face offs show the xbox 360 and ps3 versions of games are superior to wii u.
Nintendo go cheap on hardware and price highly. That's just the way it is.
The wii u won't be capable of the same game experiences that push the hardware of the ps4 or xbox one but then Nintendo never attempted that. The wii u is based on a low cost 45/40nm fabrication process, slow DDR memory and a cpu design that dates back to the last century. Nintendo have cleverly designed the wii u for maximum performance using very low cost components that puts it approximately at the same power level as 360/PS3. In some ways a bit higher and in other ways a bit lower.
Cartoon graphics do not need high resources. The textures aren't realistic and are often repeated and you don't need complex physics engines or AI. Mario Galaxy still looks amazing and thats on inferior hardware to the original xbox. Nintendo are capable of crafting beautiful, extremely playable games on more humble hardware.
The wii u does not make a good all round console capable of playing a wide range of games. It's simply not competitive in performance with regard such games and there are very few available anyway.
Still a brilliant console though but like many I'm very disappointed how low Nintendo set the performance level. I was hoping it would be somewhere in the middle between ps3/360 and xbox one/ps4 but instead its right down with xbox 360/ps3 and inferior to them in some regards.
However the key thing is the performance jump from wii to wii u is huge. It's a massive generational leap.
I don't think its unreasonable for consumers to want a higher performance console than wii u so graphics and frame rates are better. Yes you can make do with wii u level graphics but why should you. I love Skyrim and have put in many 100s of hours into that game. The wii u probably isn't capable of that game because the game engine needs high cpu resources. If it was available on wii u it would probably run much worse than we see current wii u games run at in comparison to ps3/360 and perhaps end up with missing parts in the game. The small things that add a touch of reality to the game like the ants that run across tree trunks or the clouds that drift at the top of mountains may be gone. However that said the additional memory of the wii u may have benefits in some areas and the wii u could do 1080p upscaling that the ps3 can't do. Generally though it would be weaker.
If Skyrim is converted to ps4 or xbox one we could see huge improvements over the 360/PS3 versions. Higher resolution, much more detail, lighting effects, more birds, on screen characters etc. When you are outside in Skyrim you only encounter a small selection of people at a time, maybe 10 at the most but on ps4 that could be 50 people. All this will add to the experience of feeling like you are immersed in a real world that makes games more satisfying. The wii u would do the opposite to that.
I'm just making the point that improved gpu and cpu power plus a lot more memory can make far superior games. It's like giving an artist a large canvas and a wide selection of oil paints to paint with or giving him the back of an envelope and a box of crayons. Yes he can something good with the envelope and crayons but ultimately he is limited by them.
