You're forgetting the 1-3Gb of video RAM on the graphics card. That needs to be utilised too, so actually, a console's RAM does matter... a lot.

Actually, it's closer to three 360's duct taped together along with every previous system Nintendo's ever made thrown in.

Still no sega "Blast Processor" then? Sorrow...

PS3 has a number of games at that FR. GT5 being the most notable.

From memory GT5 runs at 1280*1080 not the standard 1920*1080 which is about 2/3rds the number of pixels.  I'm sure there are others that do but they tend to be less graphically intensive titles.  Don't quote me though, happy to be corrected on the above.

I can't imagine that implementing at least two-player multiplayer on the system, perhaps using the Upad for the second player, would be that much effort for developers. But the point is that it would be capable of it, and therefore a few of the developers may actually choose to do it, rather than trying to create new assets for the Wii U version of the game to take advantage of the system's graphical power directly.

And I wasn't saying that the CPU isn't better than found in the PS3/360 - but we just don't know. The best we have at this point is rumours, and the rumours point to something similar to that found on the PS3/360, with the main differences being RAM and GPU (in other words, Nintendo is trying to minimise the bottlenecks, as usual).

As I said, I think it has more to do with developers not being interested in local multiplayer anymore, except in minigames or other social games. They prefer to focus on the online multiplayer. Sadly.

But I like the idea of local multiplayer making use of the GamePad's screen, and some games like ZombieU and NintendoLand have already shown that it can bring a lot of fun and new things into multiplayer.

I understand the reasoning, but it's one of those "if it takes only a couple of days worth of effort, and lets you put an extra bullet point on the box, why not?" sort of cases. And keep in mind that I'm not saying they'll all do it - just that we'll see a few instances of it. At least, a few early on. If sales of games that do have local multiplayer start performing better, developers will get more interested rather quickly.

It's one of the few situations I can imagine in which local multiplayer starts to become more common again. And I kind of hope that Nintendo's emphasis on "local fun with friends" will rub off on the industry a little.

I know what you mean, but unfortunately the videogames industry no longer works that way.

To put local multiplayer on a game, some guys have to think what kind of multiplayer can be done and what do they/we want to do with it, then it has to be programmed, tested and refined until it works. It takes more than a couple of days and a few people involved.

Too much money and resources "wasted" in the minds of most of the publishers to give it the green light.

I'm talking about the simplest form of multiplayer - "take the online multiplayer mode, and then basically imitate it offline". Keep in mind that playing on the TV and playing on the Upad (for no-TV mode) are both likely to be used in single-player anyway, for these games, because they're fairly straight ports. It's basically a combination of something that they were already doing, and something that requires minor modification to enable the offline version.

At least, that's how I'm envisaging it. More-than-two-player is a different question, of course.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised to at least see an online multiplayer mode that lets two people play online together, rather than one person on their own. And if they do that, they'd then really have no reason not to look at an offline version.

Having said all that, the "two days" part was just a slight exaggeration to make the point - when they're porting it, the chance to add a couple of extra bullet points for relatively little work that is cheap (making higher quality models is more expensive) just makes sense.