You can't use a 50W graphics card in a 80W console. What do you leave for the processor? RAM? Flash? Wireless and LAN? Motherboard? Audio DSP?... And two things that consume a lot, media reader and refrigeration system. The numbers don't add.

PS: Wii had a power profile of 20W. WiiU isn't much bigger than Wii.

Obviously, you haven't seen someone who's never held a controller before trying to play FPS games online. I have, and it's exactly as I described. They have no idea what they are doing, which buttons to push, which direction they are in and they usually die every 5 seconds because the other team/players are picking them off and laughing at their stupidity.

A casual game is a game where someone who's NEVER played a game can play it. Wii sports is a fine example. As much as we all love to hate COD, it's a core game. Just because something is popular, or easy for you and I to play, doesn't make it casual.

"Surprise" could mean either way. All this tells us how shocked they were in porting their games. This neither reveals Wii U's power nor how will it fare once the next PS3 or Xbox 360 come out.

And that brings out one of the biggest problems this gen that was caused by the PS3 and 360. Sony and Microsfot released consoles that were simply too expensive all around.

They released consoles with a higher relative jump than what has ever been seen. They didn't really jump in technology either, so much as they jumped in specs. This gen has sent a lot of big companies and good developers to bankruptcy. I'd say the PS3 and 360 almost single handedly destroyed gaming this gen.  They stifled PC gaming and saturated the market with overused genres that have become looked at as the "proper" or "core" way of gaming. People who don't follow their path are ridiculed as casual.

Nintendo is the only thing holding it together and they are on the right path by releasing systems with the "people" in mind. They aren't trying to impress with numbers. They are trying to make sure everyone enjoys themselves with "everyone" being the key word. Nintendo doens't care about high numbers because they're worthless now.

People insist on throwing NIntendo into a competition of specs, but they just don't understand. Nintendo has no interest in this graphics war.

It has become clear to me you have little understanding of hardware and power profiles. The Wii had a 20 Watt TDP because its hardware is based on components developed in 2001 originally manufactured with a 180nm proces then downsized to 90nm for the Wii. Again, size =/= power profile.

I also never said the GPU in the Wii U is going to have a 50 Watt TDP. I only compared the difference in performance relative to TDP in just two years time by using the 2600 XT and the 4650 as an example. If the Wii U GPU really is manufactured with a 40nm process as rumors suggest then the 5570 with a TDP of 'only' 39 Watts is plenty to smash the performance of the 360's Xenos.

Your assumption seems to be based solely on the fact that the Wii U isn't much bigger than the Wii. Understandable but mistaken.

Until we know what kind of power profile Nintendo has in mind we can't say anything without them being baseless assumptions.

No, the article clearly illustrates they're giving praise to WiiU's GPU and memory, not shocked at underperformance, so "surprise" doesn't go either way in this case.  WiiU's power relative to its 8th gen competition is another matter entirely.

What you're talking about is a non-gamer ...

My sister, sister-in-law and niece would all be classified as casual gamers based on their game preferences and they have no difficulty playing my nephews in their FPS du jour. In fact, my sister wanted to increase her "geek-cred" so I lent her Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock (games I knew she would enjoy from a story telling perspective) and she had no difficulty completing the game.

I don't know anything about hardware and power profiles. I've been reading silentpcreview since ~2005, Beyond3D since 2004, I've done overclocking with undervolting to my laptops, my studies are equivalent to an electrical engineering, and I work with hardware, but I know nothing of it.

I'm just saying that we shouldn't have unreasonable expectations of the power that a console with that aspect ratio could have. WiiU seems to be at most two times the volume of Wii, Nintendo shouldn't make a console with a power envelope higher than 50-60W with that aspect ratio, or we will have consoles that die due to thermal fatigue as X360 and PS3 suffered this gen.

I'm sure that Nintendo want a failure rate in the low single digit range, and putting >80W in a box of that size is looking for problems.

Precisely. Their comment is in comparison to PS3 and Xbox 360. Is it not a given that Wii U is to be stronger than PS3 / Xbox 360. That fact that this is even a discussion doesn't bode well for Wii U's capability once other next gen systems are out.

Edit: To my earlier comment, I meant "How shocked they were in how easy it is to port games" Oi.

How bout actually prove Sony's achilles heel is marketing lol. Excuses is all you have. But i love pointing out the flaws in your argument so here we go. First off you say Halo and Gears have alot of air time, which doesnt make a difference lol, you make it sound as if games need alot of air time to sell super well. Gears and Halo do have alot of air time (which you cant prove either) but Mario and Pokemon still outsell them so what exactly is Sony's excuse. Whats so different about Sony's marketing now compared to the past lol. Not much, its just you cant get over the fact that nobody wants their games. Its not a lack of marketing its a lack of appeal. Do some research, Sony bundles way more different games then Ninty, its just Sonys tend to fail. The rest of your post is just full of how much i love Sony so no need to even respond. "Sonys exclusives are quality, you don't have to like them, but they are KNOWN for making quality titles that are highly rated and endorse high amounts of creativity.""The only company STILL continuing to make great core and indy exclusives into 2014 without stopping is Sony. You don't have to like them...just deal with the existence of those truths."  Wow this is why you cant come up with good responses. You love Sony so much you dont want to see the truth of how they cant make a decent selling game to save their lives, just ask the Vita and its dire situation.