With the WiiU arriving in just a couple of months there is wide spread speculation on how it would fare against its inevitable arriving competitors the Xbox720 and PS4 on a graphical standpoint. This is seen as being very important as it widely accepted that if the wiiu is not up to par with the 720/ps4 nintendo will lose much needed third party support and face a similar situation that happened with the wii.I think we are going to see a huge jump from my microsoft and sony with their respective systems over the wiiU.

Why you say?

Ms and sony would never be able to survive a wii situation, that is making thier next console on slightly more powerful than the last, because kinect cannot be used in more traditional games(like halo or gears) and sony will more than likely reuse the dual shock controller scheme seeing how the move failed, thereby leaving their games with almost identical gameplay from this gen. Its quite simple really ms and sony need top of the line graphics to survive because many of their games would be pretty bland (gameplay wise) without it .

Now be honest with yourself, if 720/ps4 was only a minor leap over the 360/ps3 would you really buy a new console to play an uncharted 4, cod 12, halo 5 or GOW 5 with only minor graphical tweaks. Sorry to say but this is the price ms and sony would have to pay for building their games around shallow gameplay, with pretty graphics and violence used to catch a gamer (as is the case with most western developed games).

I wouldn't say sony and ms first party titles have "bland" gameplay though, the graphical quality on those games only adds to the experience and isn't the core reason on why the games are good.
And why do you think the wiiu controller is going to make the gameplay experience so much better than a standard controller?

Well nintendo usually develops their hardware around  their software, although nothing have been shown as yet I assume  when they do reveal thier major first party titles the gamepad would be used in someway to make the experience unique on the wiiU.

If their (360/ps3) gameplay was not "bland"  would you buy a new console to play thier first party games with only minor graphical upgrades?

Of course I would buy a new Xbox for Halo 5 even if it didn't have much better graphics. And how dare you say it's based around violence and "shallow" gameplay?

Those who have played Halo knows that the multiplayer is all about excellent gameplay, with the single player being based around excellent story, gameplay and level design.

There are other vehicles through which Sony and Microsoft could innovate with only minor upgrades. Microsoft is certainly trying to build something with a high level of Windows 8 integration, which would necessarily be a different experience than the 360 even if it only has something on the order of 2-4 GB of RAM

Of course it will be more powerful, but IMO it will not be as much of a difference between the Wii and the HD twins, and considering how much MS is focusing on social media and kinect I wouldn't be surprised if the next xbox is the same or slightly more powerful than the Wii U

Lol @ 'bland' and 'shallow' gameplay. That 'bland' gamepad gameplay has produced hundreds, no thousands, of brilliant, exquisite videogames.

Power is only relevant in the short term! Like computers... you buy a high end computer and in 2 years its out of date.

ugh just wow lol

I know it's your opinion and all but shallow gameplay? LOL

MSony first party titles have as much if not more diversity and quality when it comes to gameplay compared to Nintendo.

Here's something I don't get. What makes you think great graphics are to cover up for something else? Great graphics are there to 'improve' the experience. And they do. Same will happen with WiiU. A HD zelda, would enhance the experience for sure.

Thank god the MSony fanbase doesn't change their stance on graphics every 6 months like quite a few Ninty fans do. OMFG ZELDA DEMO...new info on wiiu hardware and rumors on the next ps/xbox appears....OMFG gfx don't matter...rinse repeat.

Came here to take you up on the whole gameplay comment thing but I see everyone else has already done it.

But yeah. While I'm sure graphics are definitely part of the appeal, I've played & loved so many of these 'bland' and 'shallow' games, as have millions of others. Good graphics & good gameplay don't have to be mutually exclusive.