The difference is in what the average consumer will notice.

Will their be more move to realistic, sure, however it will be more gradual pace at this point and you won't see gigantic differences between gaming generations as you will when you skip a few.

I think while there is room for progression, to progress now compared to a few generations ago you'll have to have exponentially more powerful hardware for a realistic cost to make a similar difference. That means while software has room for progression, the required hardware isn't increasing for a reasonable price fast enough to keep up. So any differences there will be between individual systems of a generation that follow a similar price-point will be minute, while comparing a console with that of many previous generations will show an impressive difference. Unless there is a new insight in how computers are made, the ability to successfully improve graphics will increasingly become more difficult.  

I’m honestly less interested in the base hardware that Nintendo started with as I am with the modifications that they made to it.

There are (essentially) two different strategies you can take if you want to increase the performance of your hardware. You can focus on increasing the raw theoretical performance in an attempt to increase performance in all applications and situations, or you can target specific applications or situations and try to increase the performance under those conditions. There are benefits and risks to both approaches, but after the N64 (powerful but poorly utilized hardware due to a challenging architecture) Nintendo has tended to favor focusing on improving under specific game conditions.

Now I could be wrong on this but I suspect that how Nintendo would approach modifying the GPU would be to identify the 8 to 12 essential effects that all games will use (tessellation, normal maps, displacement maps, shadow maps, etc.) and then look to make modifications to improve performance for these effects. To put this into numbers, suppose a detailed scene using all of these effects used all available processing power of the stock R700, Nintendo might aim to have their modified R700 run the same scene using all of these effects while taking up less than half the processing power.

even IF the Wii U had infinte power it would still not see games like you are saying

the DEVELOPERS have to still make the games you know.  The amount of time spent making ONE person to look perfectly human would take a long time.  then make that for ALL the people in the game.   Then onto making every room look real, ect.  The hardware isn't going to holding back games.

developers can only progress so fast towards realism.  i mean hell look at first gen 360 games and the ones coming out now.  The hardware NEVER changed, but it took many years to slowly improve each aspect of the game.  Hell there are some wii games that look as good as some early 360 games.

just like how it takes someone longer to paint a picture of someone versus drawing stick figures, it takes a developer longer to make things LOOK amazing.

Okay guys relax, it's not me that said it, it was reggie, and I also said "possibly" on par for a reason...you guys blow things waaaay out of proportion sometimes.

But seriously graphics better then the PS3? I dunno, Unless Nintendo plans on selling this machine for $350 or $400, and we all know how much they like to make a profit.

You do realize that you can buy a graphics card for your PC that produces graphics far beyond the PS3 for $100?

Unlike the console these graphics cards produce a healthy profit margin for the retailer, the manufacturer, and the company that licenced the technology.

/thread

Perhaps not always as we don't what the future will hold. With Iwata in charge it's probable though. I personally think it's a good way of doing things. Using older technology has the advantage of it being cheaper and more proven than the latest cutting edge stuff which allows Nintendo to make thier hardware more reliable and without extreme price tags. Besides the Wii was adequate technolgically for this generation of gaming and Wii U will be adequate for the next. There is no need for these silly 'graphic wars'.

Overcome PS3 graphics five years after launch is some kind of achievement now? And why all these sentiments as if PS3 was unprecedented case in terms of graphical power, as I remember it, PS3 has always and successfully been challenged by X360. Moreover I'm pretty sure that now in year 2011 you can easily build hardware similar in performance to PS3 and X360 yet significantly cheaper as long as you're planning serial manufacturing.

If Op's assumptions are correct (no proof of this statement at all btw) games will cost less to make on the Wii U, so you're less likely to go bankrupt on that system.