No one really even wants that $299.99 basic Wii U anyway (apparently readily easy to find even on Black Friday), and things look dubious as to the Wii U repeating the original Wii's success as a purely casual gaming craze. So why not have gone with a $349/$399 split on consoles and pumped an extra $50 into the system performance? 

A beefier CPU/GPU + bump up that eDRAM to 48-64MB, increase the speed of the general RAM, and that would've given IMO Nintendo definitevely better versions of all the big multi-plats, whether it was BLOPS2 or Assassin's Creed 3. 

That could've built a real foothold with core gamers, and then third parties wouldn't really have a choice in ignoring the system for games like GTAV and BioShock Infinite. Star Wars 1313 and Watch Dogs would be locks, not "maybes". And I don't think it would've hurt with non-gaming functionality such as Nintendo TVii or Miiverse either, more power = better multitasking, web browsing, etc. all around. 

I think developers are hungry for a new platform, and don't neccessarily need a 10x leap from the PS3/360 as that would be too costly in development costs. But Wii U simply doesn't represent enough of a jump. A sweet spot probably could've been reached here by Nintendo, but I think they really missed an oppurtunity by making a system far too close to two active systems already on the market. 

It could've developed a nice following I think even with Western devs wary of rising development costs and looking for a something to sell on now as the PS3/360 have grown tired. Instead we got basically a straight PS3/360 port box ... and not really even a good one so far. Give these devs are no-brainer, more powerful machine and they'll use it, but enough of this "well, maybe it's more powerful if you really tweak it" nonsense. It's 7 years younger than the 360. It should easily blow it out of the water without much fuss. 

I'm actually agreeing with you to some extent; Nintendo was in a great situation to dominate this gen, but now... Too much depends on what route MS and Sony takes. But in all fairness, we gotta wait for a game that truly shows off Wii U's capabilities before judging it. By E3 next year I think we'll know how all 3 New consoles Will be compared to each other

Thanks for your input on this.

A few things:

First of all, the system has been out less than a week, only in North America. I think it's way to early to guess what will happen to it, especially considering the competition hasn't released their own next-generation consoles.

Wii was not purely a casual craze. As a matter of fact, so-called "casuals" are the ones who buy most of the PS3 and Xbox 360 units, not just the Wii.

A powerhouse console would cost much more, and consumers might not be willing to buy it. That's an important thing to consider. A lot of people aren't that interested in super-powered consoles, particularly if the price point is too high.

Interesting thought. I agree that the Wii U has an uphill battle if it wants to repeat the Wii's casual fad success. As for the technical power of the system, I don't think it matters. Nintendo lives way out in Nintendo Land where competitors don't exist. So long as Nintendo systems continue to be the only place to play Mario, Zelda, and Metroid I believe they will do fine.

I feel Nintendo has not really learned from their previous generation mistakes with the Wii. They attributed the sharp drop off in both sales and interest, on the lack of HD, which is half the truth, apparently. That's not to say that they'll do nothing short of phenomenal, just that third parties will not follow when the competition enter their respective next-gen.

And the weirdest part is that they don't do it solely for cost issues, but power, consumption and size! They actually take into account attributes that are madatory on handhelds, not consoles. Still, they ought to fare better than the Wii, even Dreamcast had better 3rd party support than Wii...

.. just sit and watch... you see that tablet-thingy-magiggy .. that is the direction gaming on consoles will go..

Spec dont matter at this point for wiiU.. from what Ive seen 'real' peoples reaction to it outside of forums.. and if we are talking about the 90+ million wii crowd.. the majority will be impressed by HD nintendo games.. The graphics on the wiiU is sufficient.. after they see it no one would come in and ask what its got under the hood because it already looks spectacular as it is.. the wii crowd will only mostly compare it to the wii graphics.. and by that it looks amazing.

only a fool would bet against Nintendo.

"the Wii's casual fad success." <-  you still call it a fad eh? .. we nearly in the end of 2012.. the wii has done an awesome job at selling better than the other two 'none fad' consoles.. seems logical carry on.

What developers want, doesn't matter. What the market wants, is all that matters.
I don't see average people screaming around for vastly powerfull/expensive consoles. The console market is getting weaker by the year.
Average people aren't willing to spend too much money on it. Average people are actually moving towards just not caring anymore. They want to be amazed or surprised by something affordable.

IMO Nintendo made a right choice for chosing doing something new and to keep a low price. The extra increase of specs would do little.
Most (if not all) engines will have scalable versions for this generation. So why would you increase the price, for something the average consumer will barely miss or notice.

In a way, I think Nintendo really let Sony and Microsoft off the hook here to be honest.

They're both very late with 360/PS3 successors because the last console cycle took so much out of both of them early on that they need these later years to milk profit from aging platforms.

Nintendo made a ton of money off Wii, they really could've screwed Sony especially IMO with a system that was reasonably more powerful than the current HD twins without getting too ridiculous in cost. 

Sure maybe Durango/Orbis would be more powerful still in a year, but in that case, I think a lot of devs would look at the Wii U and say "y'know this platform is a good leap above the PS3/360 and it already has 10-15 million users going for it, lets focus on that, rather than even more expensive platforms with a userbase of 0".

Right now a system that's somewhere truly in between a PS3/360 and the Orbis/Durango which are a year away and likely represent a large bump in development costs ... that's the system the Wii U should be. 

I think it may hurt them in the long run in terms of third party support and console longevity yes, but they should be ok for the next 3 years even though they're already missing a few quality tp games.