RAM has almost nothing to do with framerate. The 360 and PS3 versions can't hold 25FPS because the GPU and CPU are outdated compared to current PC specs. If you try to run, for example, Crysis on a HD 4870 512MB GPU and then on a HD 4670 1GB GPU, which card will run the game with better framerates? It's obvious that the HD 4870 will run it much better, even with less RAM. About the butt-ugly textures, that may be because PS3 and 360 lack RAM, but in the framerate department, it doesn't matter at all how much RAM you have.

Nobody on here seems to have considered one thing that could be very important to how games scale. Native Resolution.

NextBox and PS4 are targeting 1080p as native resolution for all games, where as Wii U is targeting 720p Native for it's games.  It is entirely plausible that ports of PS4/Xbox games will be able to run on the Wii U's more modest hardware because games will be less resource intensive when running at lower resolutions, with either more compressed or lower res textures needing significantly less RAM.  It is afterall how most PC games are actually scaled.

My laptop is a perfect example. It is nowhere near the performance of say a high end gaming PC, it has a 1.5Ghz Quadcore AMD, an HD7670M and yes, admittedly 8GB of RAM, however; even when running games i've never used more than 3 GB and that is with a bloated Windows OS running.  I cannot hope to run games at max settings @ 1080p. Witcher 2 for example i get about 12FPS, but if i drop the settings to medium and the resolution to 1366x768p @ 30FPS i get something that looks inferior to max settings but is still a gorgeous looking game to play.  A game that at those settings (and even on low) still looks much better than the Xbox 360 version, running on a laptop whose specs are close to what is inside the Wii U.  In fact in a closed console environment the Wii U probably out performs my laptop games-wise.

So my question is if PC developers can scale games across such a huge divide in technological capabilities then why can't they for the "Next Gen" consoles?

Here are the specs for Metro Last Light http://www.destructoid.com/optimum-metro-last-light-specs-recommend-an-nvidia-titan-251890.phtml Now if 4A can scale across such a massive technological chasm then surely it is not asking too much for scaled ports on Wii U, yes they will be graphically "inferior" but not to the degree that people probably think and it will certainly not be a Wii vs PS3 situation this time round.  On paper the PS4 and Xbox will be 2-3x more powerful than Wii U, yes, but people don't seem to realise that the law of diminshing returns has kicked in for games developers, meaning that 2-3x on paper will not be 2-3x in practice because 1; large increases in computational power are only producing small visual gains and 2; devs (outside of those SONY or MS  funded) are quickly finding that they cannot be profitable with the amount of time, effort and money it takes to make games that will push PS4 and NextBox to the limits.  It gets to the point where things become so detailed that it takes too much time and you would be looking at Disney Pixar sized budgets, which EA and Square-Enix are finding simply not feasible.   

But we won't have to wait long really to begin seeing how things shape up.  The release of Watch Dogs on PS4 and Wii U will be a good barometer as to whether the gap between the two is as big as some are saying.  The ultimate comparison will be when Retro's new game (Metroid) is compared with something like KZ Shadowfall.  Only then will we see just how big this gap will be.

Low end and mid range?  AMD's released data of the 4-core Jaguar APU shows it coming close to an mobile i3.  The PS4 one will have 8 cores which should bring it close to an i3-2100/ i7-920 (Yes those are both the same gaming power).  Also the GPU is in between a 7850 and 7870.  That makes it stronger than the strongest AMD GPU 1.5 years ago, and it can still max out any game in 1080p.  It may be "Midrange," but this years midrange is way stronger than usual.  They then managed to put it on one die with the CPU!  That is impressive!

Yes, my  $1000 PC is 2-4 times stronger than the PS4, but it is impressive.  Nothing in the Wii U is anywhere near as impressive as that.  They took a 6570 and cut it way down so it uses small amounts of power.  Yay!

Derp. For you maybe and the other 0.1% or gamers out there with overspecced PC's that share your opinion.

For the rest of us.. we'll enjoy the next gen consoles and games. Back then, noone asked for $599 PS3, and now with the economic decline and recession in order I doubt people will want to spent that much on consoles. The PS4 is decently specced for what needs to do and will most likey offer great bang for the buck. Have you not seen the UT4 demo running on the PS4? That is impressive tbh considering the specs. You might not find it so, but it doesn't make it any less impressive for those who do not want to spend $1000-$2000 to acheive a similar thing on the PC.

In every topic I see you bashing the PS4 because you don't seem impressed with it (for whatever reason). It's boring. Its not specced like a high end PC. We get that. Now get off your high horse and stop posting about it.

The thing is, you fail to realize is that the Wii U's GPU is less than half the strength of the minimum one, and the PS4's is about on par with the recomended.  In addition to that, 4A games said the Wii U's too slow to handle the game lol.  It's like you are trying to prove yourself wrong!

Actually the Core i7 920 has an edge in heavily threaded games, being a quaddy and all.
The i3 2100 is just a dual core core, so if what you say is true and those 8 jaguar cores are equivalent to a low-end i3 dual-core, then I reiterate it simply ain't good enough, I wan't next generation to *feel* like next generation and not just for the first couple of years either.

The Radeon 7850 and 7870 is Mid-Range. The Radeon 7950 and 7970 is high-end, the 7990 is enthusiast level stuff.
As for a 7850 maxing out any current game at 1080P, sure, i'll concede you that point, but games have been static in their system requirements for so long because of this current generation, how would a 7850 fair if games were pushing the envelope?
As for it being stronger than the fastest AMD GPU from 1.5 years ago, that's not correct either, it's slower than the fastest AMD GPU from 4 years ago, Aka. The Radeon 5970.

Well. For starters, I wouldn't know anything about a recession, this developed nation never had one.

I'm all for bang-for buck, don't get me wrong, don't think I hate or despise the PS4 either, but some people have this funny idea that the console is going to displace all others in terms of performance, remember better hardware is better bang-for-buck if the price doesn't budge, who cares if the company goes a little more into the red? :P

As for the Unreal Engine, am I impressed by it's graphics? Sure. Could it have been better? Yes.

One question comes to mind though with the Unreal Engine 4 which is, like the Unreal Engine 3 are developers going to flog it like a dead horse? This generation the UE3 engine got so long in the tooth it wasn't funny. Graphically it had aged badly, Mass Effect 3 being the latest prime example I could thing of with horrible sky-boxes, texture pop-in and low resolution textures and that was on the PC.

As for the last part of your post, get over it. If the site wasn't dominated by Sony hardware threads, then I would have more choice to correct the incorrect information that people spread about hardware, just don't get all defensive because it's all targeted at Sony currently.

Not at all i used Metro Last Light as an example of how games can scale across a massive range of technologies not what can be scaled specifically to Wii U. I assume you can read? My actual example of how games may run was more my laptop specs which FYI can run Metro at about 25-35 FPS on mid settings and i as previously stated is less capable than a Wii U in terms of graphical output due to the closed nature and less resource sapping console environment, but I saw it as a good comparison because working on calculations to work out TFlops and taking into account greater access to resources in a console, i thought it work as a close enough match.

Secondly saying that the Wii U GPU is less than half the strength of a GTS 250 is pretty bogus claim. In a PC SETUP it would be 3/4 the power of a GTS 250, yes, but in a closed console environment it's an apples to oranges comparison, especially when you're comparing off the shelf components to heavily modified custom components. It's like saying an Xbox 360 shouldn't be able to run The Witcher 2 because it's GPU falls below the PC minimum spec.  It is a ridculous things to say.  My post was in fact more about trying to get across how far games are able to be scaled.  I was not trying to go into the nuts and bolts of specs and directly comparing them.  What you don't seem to realise is that comparing off the shelf parts used in a console to the same off the shelf parts used in a PC is utterly pointless, the level of performance that can be gleaned from a piece of silicon in a console is far greater than that of it's PC equivalent. 

Thirdly the point i was actually trying to make was that people so far have not taken into account at all what effect games being run at 1080p not 720p on GPU tech that, yes is a lot better than old tech but isn't light years ahead, especially compared to the same games running at 720p on Wii U hardware. (On a side note, It would not surprise me at all if you see resolutions slip below the 1080p standard the longer the "next" generation goes on as consoles struggle to keep up with the advances in PC hardware and rendering techniques.)

As for what 4A said if you truely believe that statement then fair enough, but please don't try and use it in this argument when that comment was actually made about the CPU NOT the GPU.  Which in itself probably says more about their unwillingness or inability to optimise code than it does about Wii U hardware. 4A's Metro Engine is widely acknowledged as being one of the least optimised engines out there. 

I was also trying to put across the point that Wii U (being 1.5-2x the power of a 360, GPU-wise) will be probably be able to run scaled down 720p ports of 1080p PS4 games but with a decrease in resolution and in the quality of things like lighting, alpha effects, particle effects, shadow mapping and AA.  They would be by no means "ugly" games but wouldn't be up to the quality of PS4 titles. It would be possible, but whether developers have the time, interest, expertise or potential financial gains, remains to be seen.

One last thing, I'm not trying to get into some kind of mud slinging match but i would like to ask that next time you decide to slap someone down and belittle their post, you make sure you actually understand what that person is trying to say.  Try and back up your counter argument with something a little more than a put down, unsubstantiated  "facts" and a misquote that is pretty much irrelevant to the discussion or point someone has made or trying to make.

Nobody on here seems to have considered one thing that could be very important to how games scale. Native Resolution.

NextBox and PS4 are targeting 1080p as native resolution for all games, where as Wii U is targeting 720p Native for it's games.  It is entirely plausible that ports of PS4/Xbox games will be able to run on the Wii U's more modest hardware because games will be less resource intensive when running at lower resolutions, with either more compressed or lower res textures needing significantly less RAM.  It is afterall how most PC games are actually scaled.

My laptop is a perfect example. It is nowhere near the performance of say a high end gaming PC, it has a 1.5Ghz Quadcore AMD, an HD7670M and yes, admittedly 8GB of RAM, however; even when running games i've never used more than 3 GB and that is with a bloated Windows OS running.  I cannot hope to run games at max settings @ 1080p. Witcher 2 for example i get about 12FPS, but if i drop the settings to medium and the resolution to 1366x768p @ 30FPS i get something that looks inferior to max settings but is still a gorgeous looking game to play.  A game that at those settings (and even on low) still looks much better than the Xbox 360 version, running on a laptop whose specs are close to what is inside the Wii U.  In fact in a closed console environment the Wii U probably out performs my laptop games-wise.

So my question is if PC developers can scale games across such a huge divide in technological capabilities then why can't they for the "Next Gen" consoles?

Here are the specs for Metro Last Light http://www.destructoid.com/optimum-metro-last-light-specs-recommend-an-nvidia-titan-251890.phtml Now if 4A can scale across such a massive technological chasm then surely it is not asking too much for scaled ports on Wii U, yes they will be graphically "inferior" but not to the degree that people probably think and it will certainly not be a Wii vs PS3 situation this time round.  On paper the PS4 and Xbox will be 2-3x more powerful than Wii U, yes, but people don't seem to realise that the law of diminshing returns has kicked in for games developers, meaning that 2-3x on paper will not be 2-3x in practice because 1; large increases in computational power are only producing small visual gains and 2; devs (outside of those SONY or MS  funded) are quickly finding that they cannot be profitable with the amount of time, effort and money it takes to make games that will push PS4 and NextBox to the limits.  It gets to the point where things become so detailed that it takes too much time and you would be looking at Disney Pixar sized budgets, which EA and Square-Enix are finding simply not feasible.   

But we won't have to wait long really to begin seeing how things shape up.  The release of Watch Dogs on PS4 and Wii U will be a good barometer as to whether the gap between the two is as big as some are saying.  The ultimate comparison will be when Retro's new game (Metroid) is compared with something like KZ Shadowfall.  Only then will we see just how big this gap will be.