Nintendo has defined the next gen. Now, to sit and watch them win.

The term “next generation gaming console” is usually associated with more power and better graphics. But not for Nintendo. The company believes that next generation gaming should improve the gameplay experience, instead of just offering more horsepower. Nintendo did exactly that with the Wii, even though many dismissed it as not being a “true” next gen console compared to the more powerful Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Some in the industry have criticized the Wii U for the same reasons, saying it’s only slightly more powerful than the current consoles.

“For next generation we look at the user experience, the gaming experience, how we can improve that and offer new kinds of gameplay” said Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata in an interview with Independent. He added that the company took the same approach with the Wii in 2006, and was initially criticized for having a console that’s far less powerful than the competitors. Iwata recently told investors that despite the rumors, Wii U power won’t be too far behind the next consoles from Microsoft and Sony. 

Iwata added that from now on, it will be “increasingly difficult” to compete over graphics, and that it will become hard to tell the difference between great graphics on different systems. He believes that unless the gameplay experience is rich, “wonderful graphics won’t help”. Finally, Iwaya confirmed that there are several unannounced third party Wii U games in development which will be revealed this Fall.

Souce: http://wiiudaily.com/2012/07/nintendo-next-gen-is-about-improving-gaming-experience/

Because improving how a largely VISUAL medium looks won't improve the experience.

I mean I see his point, gameplay and "innovation" (that word is tossed around way too lightly in this industry) comes first, but when a game looks amazing it improves the experience immensely. It's a big part of the experience and the poor visuals on the Wii compared to PS360 turned away a lot of core gamers.

The amount of return you get from updating graphics is getting less and less.  I would ask now, based on what you see with graphics today, are the games unplayable?    I bet one can go back in 10 years and look at 3D stuff today, and find a number of games that would still be playable.  I contrast that with 3D stuff on the original Playstation and a number of them fall VERY short of desirable now.

You'll say wow.

This is exactly what I would have said 10 years ago though. People forget about the march of progress so easily. I remember seeing old usenet posts about diminishing returns in the early Dreamcast era - how much further could we possibly improve graphics from upcoming 128 bit beasts! How can we expect developers to create games on PS2/GC/Xbox hardware, it's too powerful and complex!

It's the same spiel every generation, difference is now Nintendo have a weaker machine to sell, so they'll be saying it too, not just forum posters. 

it is pretty simple, a game isn't good with bad gameplay, let the graphics be as good as possible, but better graphics for the same game improve the experience. it is a very simple formula. walk through a game with great gameplay and average graphics and you will like it a lot. make the same game with awesome graphics and you will like it even more. as better the graphics as more you will enjoy the world you are playing in.

the difference for me in a game with awesome graphcis or only average graphics is, for the game with average graphics i need 10 hours to play through, the game with awesome graphics need some more hours for me because i really enjoy the world and i will stand still plenty of times just to look at something because it looks so wonderful. if i see average fire in a game, i don't care, if i see the best fire i have ever seen in agame, i will stand there and look at it few minutes just because it looks so unbelievable great.

when i first played uncharted 2 i was wasting hours just to look at the environments. if the game wouldn't have had these graphics i wouldn't have done that. i wouldn't have thought "wow just look at this small mountain village, it is sooo wonderful"

PS3/360 level graphics are perfectly fine for my taste so I do agree with Mr. Iwata that upgrades in graphics will be less important for the next generation.

I don't agree what turned away core gamers from Wii wasn't poor visuals, it was just poor 3rd party support, caused by Wii's unablity to run the same engines and the same gaming assets used for 360/Ps3. So in the end the cause is still underpowered hardware, but the reason was not mainly visuals.

Hardcore gamers love also bad looking games, like GTA on Ps2. I mean, i liked and I used to play GTA too, but in terms of visuals it was ugly.

I don't understand why Nintendo can't have both great graphics and innovative gameplay? It's not like by making your console more powerful you force all dev teams to live under the mentality - "All gameplay must now be stale and unimaginative". I love my 3DS but I feel the 3D part is just gimiky. I would have rather they decided not to include the 3D at all and instead focused that attention on making the system more powerful/have more features.

I hope the WiiU does well and i'm excited to get one, but I hope after the novelty of the tablet controller wears off (hoping it doesn't, but ya never know) I won't be sitting there wishing "Wow I wish they would have just made more powerful hardware instead"

That's what the PC is for.