Well then the alternative is the Wii way. Which basically means every serious third party developer is going to abandon you by about year 2. Developers have their own headaches and problems and PC/PS4/720 is what they're going to focus on, they're not going to have the time to work on a completely different version for Nintendo's machine.

Even if the Wii U can (barely) run 720/PS4 games from 2014/2015 when that console cycle really gears up ... how long until Wii U users start to get a little pissed off at paying the same price for crappier (lower res, lower frame rate, lower effects, etc. etc.) versions of the same game on three other platforms? Eventually you're going to have people bailing out for other platforms outside of the Mario/Zelda fanatics who stay with Nintendo no matter what.

I do think the consumer needs to take some responsibility here too ... I mean if you want more, more, more in terms of graphics, people need to wake up and realize companies are going bankrupt. Console owners have become spoiled.

With the PS3, yes you got a pretty Uncharted 3. The cost to Sony? They basically blew all the profit they made in the PS1 + PS2 eras during the PS3s massive losses. As a corporation as a whole, Sony now has something like $7 billion dollars in debt.

Nintendo's not going to get baited into playing that game, so there has to be some give and take. No Nintendo is not going to give you a console for $300 in 2012 that costs them $400+ to make. But hey, the great thing about these chips is they drop in price pretty damn quickly, so by 2014 (by which time some games that actually really need that tech might be coming out) if they can give you that level of tech for a much more affordable price and it takes 20 seconds to plug in to your existing console ... why not?

It was the same thing with WM+ ... Nintendo wanted to incorporate that into the Wiimote right from the beginning but it would've made the Wiimote a ridiculous cost (like $80 a controller). 2 years later ... it's affordable, 3-4 years later, it's integrated right into the controller itself. Fair compromise IMO, it's a shame that developers had bailed on the Wii by then, but that really wasn't the fault of the WM+.

PC games are massively compressed.    Your install size and the size on the hard drive are very different.    Console games aren't compressed.

Now even if Wii U turns out to be underpowered compared to the PS3 and Next X, it won't have the developer abandonment the Wii had.  To port to Wii, you had to completely redo the game because of the difference in architecture and asset handling.   Because the Wiii Uuses modern shader architecturre, it's far easier to port down too it.  Going from shader model 3.0 to a fixed function TEV is very, very hard.  But Wii U will utilize at least shader model 4.1.  Even asset scaling would be simple.

The question is anyone going to be crazy about buying the Wii U version when there are better versions of different platforms for likely the same price?

This is all going to follow a pretty predictable scenario where the Wii U version sells the worst, and then developers start to phase out making a Wii U version entirely.

Lets not act like Nintendo is the incumbent leader here when it comes to the hardcore demographic. Faaaaaaaaaaar from it, they got about as much to prove with this crowd as a cheating-and-caught-in-the-act husband does with his wife.

Nintendo can't sell a crazy expensive piece of kit. They just can't. Basically I'm just advocating the WM+ approach ... too expensive in 2012? Sure. But late 2014? Time is Nintendo's advantage, they have time to let technology scale to a price. Not so much. Let the consumer decide if they want it or not. I think in a way it's also a "democratic" approach to hardware. Why should the soccer mom who just wants Wii Sports U + NSMB Mii have to pay $400 for a game console? She doesn't need to play Call of Duty 209238. If you want to play those high end games and you're insistent on a high end chip ... then step up to the plate and pay for the add-on. You want it, then let your wallet do the talking.

Even if disc space is that much of an issue -- what's an extra disc cost to press? 50 cents? If it all doesn't fit on one disc, you can have one disc for the "crappy" version, lol, and a second disc for the "high end assets" version. Not much different from just about every Blu-Ray movie today which ships with like 2-3 different versions on different discs.

Wasn't the PS and PS2 weaker than otehr consoles of their generation?  Is the tablet not a valid means to attract gamers to more engrossing gameplay experience?  Are you suggesting graphics are all that will matter to core gamers?

The PS and PS2 were not moderate upgrades on the SNES/Genesis and PS/N64 ... they were full generational leaps forward from the previous generations. 

The Wii U is not looking like that over the 360/PS3 ... which by the way I think is going to be a big problem for Nintendo too. All these casuals are not gaurunteed to go to a Wii U.

For a lot of them, I suspect they had their fun with Wii Sports five years ago and there's no gauruntee at all that they're even interested in gaming beyond what's on their iPad right now. The other half that might be interested in a HD "Wii" may also become smitten by the likely cheaper XBox 360 w/Kinect.

THAT audience is likely not going to give one hoot about the different between 360 graphics and Wii U graphics. If Nintendo thinks they are just going to show up with this tablet controller and collect all the casuals ... I think Microsoft has another thing coming for them. They are going to fight for that audience tooth and nail now that they've gotten a taste of casual success with Kinect and they can undercut Nintendo in price and have a far, far larger back catalog of games.

My 400 dollar computer cannot even do BF3 at 60FPS 1080p  What in your right mind makes you think a console could do that at a sub 400 dollar price tag?  

No OS overhead, No API overhead, code optimization.

How in the world do you think the PS3/X360 run Crysis 2 compared to the GPU's those consoles were based on?

Not to mention Sony/MS/Nintendo don't exactly buy their GPUs/CPUs/RAM/etc. from the local Best Buy. They obviously get very different rates on their parts based on orders in the millions for 4-5+ years at a time.

Happy you didn't fully read my reply. I did address the OP in full. I also addressed the recent idea that WiiU will be weaker then 360. I stated the WiiU absolutely must be 2.5x the power minimum but 5x the power would likely be smart. If they follow the Wii model they will hit all of the same walls the Wii hit. The console best case scenerio lasts 4 years before tanking hopefully be the time it tanks it will have a large enough lead over its competitors. But the other scenerio is Nintendo actually doesn't reach the success Wii had. Simply because the Wii had something new and revolutionary it also targeted the casual market in a massive way. WiiU will not likely have as big of a revolution with the tablet nor will they likely have the same success they had with casuals who could get a better graphical experience on an I-pad 5 plus they could do things on their phone and iPad that WiiU couldn't likely do.

Nintendo will still have success with the casual market the gamers who like to play fifteen minute pick up and play sessions and buy three games a year. But they won't have the success they did with Wii if they don't claw back some of those lost core fans.

Reggie was right when he said one of the biggest challenges for Wii was that it couldn't receive ports. Reggie talked about how RE5 was only not released on Wii because it couldn't be ported it would need to be built from the ground up.

Nintendo needs multiplat games. As such the Wii model will not give Nintendo the success it had last generation. Nintendo needs to diversify its audience more and expand it rather then focusing on repeating the same mistakes and successes they had with Wii!

what would benefit then Going the route of the Wii?