The power consumption of the Wii U in games is roughly 35W. This is for the entire console, not just the GPU. 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-wii-u-is-the-green-console

Assuming the specs outlined in the article/found by NeoGaf are in the ballpark, the graphics card is very similar to HD5550 without DX11 support. (320 SPs, 16 TMUs, 8 ROPs, 550mhz GPU clocks). http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=630&card2=

HD5550 has a VP rating of 27 VP and a power consumption of 39W. The GPU in Xbox 360 was claimed to be similar to X1800XT 512MB by ATI themselves, or a VP rating of 16.7.  That means a full blown HD5550 GPU is roughly 62% faster than the GPU in the Xbox 360. HD5550 has 28.8 GB/sec memory bandwidth but Wii U's only has 12.8GB/sec. That means the GPU in the Wii U is slower than HD5550. 

The rumored specs for Durango includes a GPU about as powerful as an HD7770 (94 VP). For Orbis it's ~HD7850 (141 VP).

http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?p=41174

That means PS4 and Xbox 720 could easily end up at least 3.5-5x faster. I would consider that in an entirely different league.

Graphics can improve, absolutely. A real improvement would be Avatar-like graphics on home consoles/PCs. But, the next-generation simply can't deliver it. Battlefield 3 PC, for example, looks nice, surely, but, really, it's no generational leap. And, by the looks of it, no "next-gen" game will have substantially better graphics than that game, based on the specs of the PS4/Nextbox. Also, Physics and AI could improve, but to make this happen, the amount of money invested on creating the technology would be way beyond most game companies can pay, even if the console has the power to make improved physics and AI happen.

Here is my thought on the Wii U, the games are not going to look bad. Sure they won't be as good as PS4 and Nextobox, but it won't be like the Wii.

With the Wii, pretty much most games looked pretty bad. Not just in comparison to it's HD brethren, just plain bad, and dated.

Even when PS4 and Nextbox look significantly better, Wii U won't look bad. Which is much different from last gen.

While I do wish that Nintendo would up the power a bit more, and return to a gamecube like strategy, they never will, so I will just buy it for exclusives, and use my PS4 for 3rd party stuff.

hacker hector marcan tweeted its the wii situation all over again.

Héctor Martín ‏@marcan42
@NintenGOD773 well, it's going to get raped by Durango and PS4, but did anyone seriously expect that not to happen?

Héctor Martín ‏@marcan42
@NintenGOD773 they seem to be somewhere in the middle of the competition's prior and current gen. Kind of like the Wii all over again.

plz somebody stop this...

For me I value gameplay > graphics but I can't understand why the Wii costs $300-350 without a mechanical drive and with such slow CPU/GPUs. Even if the controller costs $175, where did the rest of the $ go to? Even buying an off-the-shelf A10-5700 at cost directly from AMD would have produced a much faster console. I bet you can buy that APU and 2GB of DDR3 from AMD directly for $70 all in. Sounds like Nintendo literally wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on some custom CPU/GPU designs that ended up miles worse than a basic Trinity APU. Considering how Nintendo is great at making games, their hardware component selection for the $300-350 Wii U is shocking given the Wii's price tag and the fact that they are still losing money on the console!

Also, how does the GamePad even cost $175 given that it has no CPU/GPU inside, the battery is too small and the screen isn't even multi-touch, with low resolution? I just don't get the cost structure behind Wii U's components. I am not sure if Nintendo got ripped off from a business perspective by its suppliers or they are including hundreds of millions of dollars of R&D as part of the Wii U's "manufacturing cost"? 

More he tweeted the registers shows a R600 GPU and not R700... aka HD 3850.

R600 gpu, what's the specs on that.

HD 3850 = 320:16:16 (more 8 ROPs than Wii U GPU).

Why should people forget about the inevitable change for Sony and Microsoft consoles that graphics is an issue? Sony is kind of being directly threatened by Microsoft and they are playing a "who can do what the devs want best to have the best looking multiplats"game. Nintendo forgot that their hold on devs was directly because of their handling the power of systems and creating a name that devs became dependent on, and when Sony came they were free of it all. Consoles can impress graphically, but every gen we want to see a leap. Again, this leap isnt going to be as great, but Sony and MS are going to try as hard as possible to meet third parties wishes which will leave Nintendo in the dust where support is conerned for major titles but also, they will probably take a hit sell consoles. This might also screw up Nintendos chances at ever getting another FF franchise in the coming gen.