Some features can be scaled, others simply need the hardware implace to be able to do it. Seeing that the WiiU is running a 40nm gpu, it certainly won't have the power needed to do many of these functions at all, and this is what happens when you have an exponential power gain. Take the PS2 and xbox. The xbox was almost twice as powerful, but it was still feeble in terms of computing and the 100% extra power allowed it to do little more. Now, however, 100% more power is a phenominal amount of power as we are talking about a few more terraflops, not one or two gig more. This huge boost allows entire new features to occur that would have been to much of a system hog previously eg. real time particles. You also have the huge issue of memory bandwith which the PS4 has an unrivalled amount (even to PC's), not sure on the xboxone due to lack of info, but the WiiU isn't even on the horizon. Devs will be creaming themselves over this feature because as you'll know, it will make life very easy for them and allow a lot to happen in game.

Also as a side note, as TV resolutions grow/more people get 1080 screens, you can't afford to down scale anything. Textures need to be sersiouly upscaled along with shadows, polygon counts etc as the HD resoltion tears crappy graphics apart. If you then downscale the resoltuion, this will look very poor in comparison to the competition.

But which features?

The WiiU can run Unreal 3 Engine, but not the samaritan demo.

Again, back to car analogies :D  A car can drive on a road, but can it reach 70mph? 100mph? 200mph? etc. Same goes for the consoles and many engines.

What if i said it could run on the PS3 with less detailed textures and 30 fps. Does it sound possible now? Because i respectufully disagree with you. I didnt see anything inherently amazing with the Killzone demo. Granted, it was the best we have seen so far from next gen consoles.

TBH I think KZ4 can run on the PS3 lol, the lighting and draw distance wouldn't be as good though, and that's because the PS3 has shit for RAM is about it(of course you wouldn't have dx11 like effects, but average users can't see the difference so much.) The assets they were using weren't really that detailed and weren't massive in poly count. I think the final KZ4 will actually look quiet a lot better than the demo in detail TBH.

1.) The silicon size doesn't have anything to do with features, Wii U has the feature set, I think you are talking about the raw power required to have all the effects on screen at once, which is actually possible if it's toned down. I don't know how much more of course, I'm not a Wii U dev or anything. The games also don't need to run in 1080p, it can run in 720p or even in dynamic res, it's not a deal breaker.

2.) Xbone and PS4 can't run the Samaritan demo either, actually, they can, at prolly 1FPS, while the Wii U might go at 0.5FPS lol. I also don't know why you are comparing it with cars, the analogy actually doesn't work since you won't get anywhere faster during traffic hour no matter how fast your car can go. The correct analogy would be exactly how a gaming engine would work, which is much more dynamic.

What do you talk about? 40nm-process? That is about the size of the structures. The same CPU or GPU can be manufactured in different structural-sizes. That has down- and upsides. I assume, that later revisions of the consoles will have the same chips on smaller structures, that will reduce costs, as these smaller processes gain enough output. But that will change nothing on the power. So you mentioning 40 nm has nothing to do with anything discussed in this thread.

Doubled power (+100%) will be doubled power. Yes, in absolute terms it will be more, but that doesn't matter, because doubled power for instance means the doubled framerate can be rendered, regardless if 10 years back or today. That was what we were talking about, reducing resolution and framerate. And yes, this probably has noticeable effects. As a programmer I can assure you, the lower res textures because of smaller RAM will have much more visible effect than the power itself.

EDIT: I don't deny stuff will look worse on WiiU, than on PS4/XBone. But I say it is basically possible to scale graphical effects. How much worse it looks we will have to see, Watchdogs may give some indications. As I said before, AI and physics will probably not scalable in the same way, as they really impact gameplay. We will see if games will use the additional power for AI and physics in this way.

As if a five-person development team could create a more visually impressive game on Nintendo platforms than EA Sports could.

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Hmm. A gif from a movie I've actually seen. That's rare.

The power difference between PS4 and Wii U is not that significant. Of course the PS4 will produce better graphics, but the Wii U is capable of toned down versions easily.

Only very physics heavy games could be hard to reproduce on Wii U.

But there is also the other way round: Wii U with its unique hardware design and fast connection of CPU/GPU and eDRAM could some things easily that would take an enormous amount of cpu/gpu power on PS4.

I agree with this topic stating that you don't need much better graphics to get good games, but if a new system is barely a step up from the old generation it's simply not next gen for a hardware perspective.

And the difference is not small, in terms of graphics power the PS4 is over 10 times more capable than the Wii-U. That's not a gap you can fill by just lowering a few details.

I am a Nintendo fan, but I just lol everytime people say that Wii U is better (technically) than PS4