And why should Ninty do this? When did they start owing us information?

In rough terms this looks somewhat like a Radeon HD 6670 ...

While benchmark numbers are not great for general comparisons, the Passmark score for the HD 6670 was 1146 while the score for the Geforce 7800GT (essentially PS3 GPU) was 518; and the Radeon HD 4850 (previous rumour) is 1332. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+6670

I would say that (depending on how customized it is) this may be in the rough performance range most people were expecting.

Wrong!  Wii U is a super Computer by 2007 standards.  I could build you a PC now for $400 that easily performs better than the Wii U.  

Actually it's more like 6570, even bit slower (more like 6550M but with GDDR5 instead of DDR3)

hm.. yea the G92 (8800 GTS 512) released dec 2007 and the HD 6670 is about on par with that in power

I think TheSource's choice of words were wrong but his point is correct ...

When the Dreamcast, PS2, XBox and Gamecube were released they were hardware that (roughly) performed in a range that you'd expect from a console releasing at that point in time.

With the XBox 360 and PS3, Sony and Microsoft released systems that were bigger, more expensive and used more power than any console before to release hardware that was (probably) 12 to 24 months ahead of what you would typically expect from a console; and Nintendo released a system that was (probably) about 36 to 48 months behind what you would typically expect from a console.

The Wii U appears to be about 12 to 18 months behind what you would normally expect from a console that was releasing at the end of 2012.

I like how the definition of super computer seems to be what about a measly $800 or so could buy. 

There is a difference between numerical performance comparisons and graphical results. Everyone is factoring "out" the fact that it uses modern technologies that are simply impossible on the older hardware components that they are trying to retroactively compare it to.

The numerical on paper performance and what they GPU can actually output on screen are two completely different things. Its like saying that because two boxes(one filled filled with tools (one with old wooden tools and the other filled with dynamic stainless steel modern tools) and supplies weigh the same, that the potential of the wooden tools is the limit of the steel tools.

Showing numbers is one things. What is done with those numbers is another. You can't do Tesselation on a 7800GT or 8800 GTS or use shader modal 5.0 features.

Couldn't be further from the truth. 

The Wii U kicks out out a Petaflop? Why make stuff up? The Wii U is equivalent to a supercomputer from '96 and so was the Wii. 

BTW I think people are confusing TFlops with Gflops. 

Oh hey, this just showed up in my gmail account, so I know it's legit:

The PS4 will use a genetically enhanced herring brain for a GPU. It's supposed to be wicked powerful, but you'll need to change fluids for the brain every day or it shrivels up and starts to smell (more than usual).