I don't think that even on PS4/Durango you'll be able to see nearly the noticeable difference between PS3 and PS4 as you saw between PS2 and PS3.  I really don't think that you'll be able to tell the difference much at all until you go up to a 4k resolution, and even then I think the differences will be negligible.  Video Games are already scratching at the uncanny valley in this generation.  Believe it or not, there is an upper limit as to how good video games can look before you reach a point of diminishing returns.  I think we've hit that point with PS3/Xbox360.  To really blow them away, you'll have to spend orders of magnitude more money on tech than you did to get the same difference as last gen.  It just isn't worth the money from either the console makers or the game designers. 

why keep bringing up consoles you've never seen before?? How can you be so sure? Im not saying you're wrong, but in the end you know as much as the rest of us here, which is jack. not a noticable difference like PS2/3?? Why do you people keep saying that? what about the difference between PS1/2? SNES/NES? Saturn/Genesis? those were all regular generational leaps for the most part. YOu dont know the finances for the other two, well Sony is kinda screwed, but we are talking about systems that have already been out for years, you dont think that can be topped, from what ive seen from epic and even Square it absolutely can be topped so we'll agree to disagree. BUt we should be talking about Wii U, do you believe that Wii U is actually a generational leap from PS360?? Reading your entire post, im guessing no, which is fine for you, not really for me. If your releasing a console and calling it the start of the new gen some 6 years later, then by God it better be an actual generation leap, its been like that since NES and im not going to change and lower my standards for what i expect to be a new gen console

Where the hell did this rumor even start from? Ubi Soft nor Nintendo has ever said this. If AC3 on the Wii U was doing this, the developers would've said it straight up. 

The PS1 to PS2 difference was, lets be honest, more polygons, higher res textures.  SNES to NES: more sprites, more colors, higher res.  Tech was much more limiting back then than it is now.  And I don't know the "finances", but I do know the market and in this economy no one is going to buy a console that costs over 400 dollars.  At least, not enough to get yourself an install base.  What is the difference betwee Wii and WiiU?  High definition, more polygons, higher res textures, better shader effects.  Whats going to be the difference between PS3 and PS4?  The models on PS3 games already look spectacular, so increasing the polygon count isn't going to buy you much more visual fidelity.  Increasing the texture resolution?  Its already in HD, anything higher is a waste of resources since TVs can't display anything higher.  Better shader tech?  Yeah, that's probably about it.  You'll get the edges of eye candy to improve, and little else.

Unless they want to bring everything into 4k.  In which case cost is going to go well beyond 400 dollars, software development costs (already measured in the 10s of millions) is going to skyrocket, and most devs will decide it isn't worth the effort for the added costs.  Just more units they have to sell in order to be profitable.

You see, it doesn't matter if PS4 or Durango come out with something 20X more powerful than the WiiU.  Developers aren't going to commit the kind of resources it would need to in order to take advantage of that hardware, because at the end of the day you wouldn't even be able to tell the difference in the living room.

Nintendo has made the smart move.  And I think Sony and Microsoft will follow suit.

Crono141
exactly

Perhaps lilbroex started it. At least he's the one who spread the rumour to VGC.

I'm just curious as to why so many people seem to be ignoring the fact that franchise debuts onto a newly releasing console often have things left out or are rushed/not 100% polished to get included in the launch line-up or that first holiday.  XBox 360's Madden NFL 07 was a stripped down abomination that did not sell a third as well as the same title on the previous gen XBox.  I played both titles, and I can confirm that the original XBox title was superior from personal experience.  Marvel: Ultimate Alliance which was part of the PS3 launch line-up was riddled with glitches not present in the XBox 360 or Wii versions and sold the worst of not just the 3 consoles of this gen, but worse than the PS2 and PSP versions as well.  Launch titles (or first holiday) are not always perfect, and do not always stack-up to the previous gen systems which developers have been developing on for years previously.  It has nothing to do with the system they are made on.  It has to do with a conscious decision by the developer to rush the game in order to either take advantage of launch window or holiday sales.  People are reading into the statement "it is 99% identical to other systems" to claim that the Wii U must therefore be weaker than current gen systems, which is an absurd conclusion.

You may have a point but I think you're operating on a few false assumptions. 

Firstly, the majority of the hardcore community doesn't give a sh*t about Nintendo (lets be honest) to begin with. They buy their content on Sony/MS machines. 

Just because the Wii U is "sorta close" to the 720/PS4 in the future ... so what? What does that mean to that demographic? Even if the only difference between Wii U/PS4/720 games are that the PS4/720 versions run at 1080p vs. only 720p for the Wii U, I'd bet most of this demo is going to buy the 720/PS4 version.

But if we're talking the 720/PS4 versions have a higher resolution, more effects, higher quality textures, better anti-aliasing, etc. etc. etc. then the gap widens. If we're talking about games built from the Unreal Engine 4, that gap may widen considerably if the Wii U cannot do the sam tesselation effects etc. 

Higher screen resolution doesn't massively impact development cost either. I have Portal 2 on my PC, it runs at resolutions far above even 1080p (on an iMac for example). It's not like they had to double the budget to get it to run at that resolution. 

Further I recall a lot of people saying a lot of developers would jump onto the Wii over the PS3/360 because it was much cheaper to develop for. How did that pan out by about 2008/9 or so? 

"Firstly, the majority of the hardcore community doesn't give a sh*t about Nintendo (lets be honest) to begin with. They buy their content on Sony/MS machines."

can someone insert an apropiate pic to this comment please?.....i cant do it by myself ......damn
great bait nontheless ;)

I'm just being honest. Go talk to the average kid that buys their content on the 360/PS3 or go ask them at GameStop what they think about the Wii brand. 

You'll probably find what I've said is pretty polite. 

The system wars stuff is silly really, though. 

We know PS4/720 are going to be more powerful than the Wii U. We know Sony/MS hold the hardcore demographic almost entirely in their hands. 

Nintendo's goal I don't think is to compete against Sony/MS. They just don't want to be so incredibly one dimensional, because that can be problematic for their business ... what happens when you end up with a Wii Music instead of a Wii Fit? Wii sales drop. That was a problem Nintendo realized, casual gamers are fickle and unpredictable and go running elsewhere (see: iPad becoming the new hot thing). 

That's what I think Nintendo's aim with Wii U is. It's still going to be the mass market/casual centric/family oriented console, but they would like to have a little more presence with the hardcore set because it's a much more predictable/reliable demographic. But at the same time, I don't think Nintendo is willing to engage MS/Sony directly to get that because they don't want to get into a spending war.