You're S4 specs are wrong, though that is an easy mistake due to how often new models come out. The CPU is in fact a 1.6GHz Octa-Core processor/1.9GHz quad-core processor in UK. "The Samsung Galaxy S4 is equipped with a 1.9GHz Quad-core AP or a 1.6GHz Octa-core AP [application processor]," the company said in a statement sent to PC Pro." at 28nm, which is far more advanced than the ancient relics that run the current consoles. Also note how that GPU runs DX 10.1....so straight away it has more features than current consoles.

Plus, is it really that hard to believe? How many people own phones and will happily drop £500 for a phone every 18 months, yet how many gamers complain if a new console comes out for £350 with a 4 year shelf life? One market has a future, the other does not.

I'm beginning to hope the games industry crashes with their attitude towards nintendo. If karma is indeed a real thing, you better believe it will.

Obviously - because cultivating a childish public persona in PR, being cocky and dismissive of other people's work and putting lock-in tactics for business and corporate interests way before customer satisfaction is totally beneath Cliff "CliffyB" Bleszinski.

Seriously, about the OP: Nintendo could have handled this better business-wise. Nowadays, as PS3/360 development showed in the last 5 to 7 years, middleware is extremely important in building an ecosystem. Just as you cultivate business relationships and negotiate with distributors, transport companies, chip foundries, you can negotiate for software tools and services.

I'm pretty sure the required specs for UE4, that Epic made public a long time ago, were on the desks of the guys designing the new platforms at Sony and MS. Even if Nintendo had decided to go another way with a more compact, cheaper, lower specced machine focusing on different gameplay, they could have invested some time and money (if there's something they don't lack is money) in support deals with big middleware providers.

For the cost of a few games they could have financially pushed Epic into creating a "light" optimized version of UE4, or an improved version of UE3, or better tools to bridge between the two and made sure that their devs had easy access to cheap, powerful tools. They could have established business deals so that developing for WiiU granted devs a discounted license for UE4U or FrostbiteU. In turn, availability of cheap, effective canned engines would pay off with more developers taking chances on their platform, something that somehow they seem reluctant to do.

Maybe it's my impression, but they seem to be one step behind when it comes to facilitating modern workflows, whereas there was a whole "HD" generation full of blunder stories to learn from.

Thats not a compareable situation at all.

Nintendo fans are downplaying this but its a huge blow.  The only reason Wii sold so amazing without 3rd party support is because it attracted an entirely different audience.  The Wii U isnt appealing to the mass market audience and its not appealing to the core.  Every game it loses out on is a big loss

Nintendo chose Unity, right in their SDK lol. It's a really good choice TBH, it's cheaper, it's flexible, and it's easy to use. I personally don't see a point in a Wii U version of UE4 directly from Epic since I never thought it'd be able to run the advanced effects in it to start with. I mean PS4 can't even reach their target render and they had to cut SVOGI, so what the hell would they accomplish with the Wii U?

I would not care if it's UE3, UE3+ or UE4U as long as devs have a viable and reliable way to port games developed for PC/PS4/Xbox. I've heard good things about Unity, but it won't help the WiiU having UE4-based multiplatforms coming out the same day as the PC/PS4/Xbox counterparts. Late ports usually perform much worse sales-wise.