I mean, everyone keeps saying "Nintendo will show how it's done," in terms of pushing Wii U's graphics, but really, will they?

So far they've shown no inclination to. New Super Mario Bros U looked like an up-rezzed Wii game, Nintendoland was pleasant looking but simplistic, Pikmin 3 suffers from Twilight Princess Syndrome with beautiful effects but textures that look like holdovers from its beginnings as Wii game.

Is it so hard to imagine that Nintendo, which tends towards simpler visual styles and is new to HD development, simply won't both pushing the system? Hell, they didn't even bother pushing the WII most of the time, and pushing Wii U will likely be quite a bit harder and more demanding.

Then there's third parties. It's unlikely multiplats will be optimized to take advantage of Wii U's larger RAM and newer GPU. As for exclusives, games like Wonderful 101 and Sonic Lost World, are following Nintendo's lead and using simple styles that don't require a lot of technical omph. 

So far we've seen only ONE game, X, that hints at the system's visual potential.

At this stage I can just see E3 drawing to a close with nothing shown that doesn't look like a 360 port. (Or worse, a Wii port)

Yeah I'm a little worried by that. But so long as the games are fun I can live with it.

Wish we still had factor-5 around .

X and Retro's game will decide what the system is really capable off.

Can't wait to hear people say those games look worse than 360 games!

If Nintendo is smart, they'll get someone like Retro to show off the graphical oomph of the system, and leave the playful, colorful, not graphically amazing games to their Japanese teams. It should be something very hardcore, and very Western in style and gameplay, which would make for a nice contrast to stuff like Mario and Zelda.

That said, we still probably won't see any Wii U game this year that looks much better than what the 360 or PS3 can put out. Maybe by the end of the Wii U's life cycle we'll see a game that makes us say, "that definitely couldn't be done on a PS3."

Well Mario Galaxy and SS pushed Wii to a fair degree.

New Shinen game should push it.

Monolith is already pushing it (I think?), and Retro's looking to. Besides, people get better with tech the longer they have their hands on them so the 2nd round of WiiU games should look pretty good.

Well, we have a couple potential games that could push it:

Mario: I really hope they push the hell out of the system with this, galaxy looked amazing, and stood tall right next to ps360 games, I hope they use a new engine, and just make this a pretty game, I'm worried that they might just use the galaxy engine, and up res, which would be a disappointment.

X: We got an early preview and it looked great, it's only going to get better. I'm excited

Retros new game: Retro has never made a game that hasn't pushed the system, every game they have made could be considered the best looking game on that respective system, I'm confident it will be the same in this case.

I think it will get pushed, Nintendo always pushes their system to the best of their abilities I would argue.

I am not much of a graphics aficionado, however, I want ZeldaU to extract every ounce of power from the system. It's my guilty pleasure.

I agree with Mensrea. 3D Mario is the game that will tell us whether Nintendo is really going to try and put Wii U to work graphically. The Galaxy games are beautiful, easily at the top of the Wii game heap, and so I'm really hoping they'll give the same treatment to Super Mario Universe (c'mon...does anyone else think that title is so completely obvious and perfect that Nintendo couldn't NOT use it? lol).

X we've seen and it already looks fantastic and no doubt will get refined more and more...besides we've only seen one area so far too, and the draw distance alone is incredible.

Retro Studios ALWAYS tries to get the absolute MOST out of a system's graphics. So I expect whatever they're working on will be one of the best looking titles released in the Wii U's lifespan.

Another series that usually delivers is Zelda. Wind Waker HD will look nice, but the truly NEW Zelda game, which will probably arrive in 2015 (I'm guessing Holiday), regardless of the art-style, will look REALLY nice I'm sure. The only issue with Zelda is that it polarizes people by switching art-styles so dramatically, so even if it does a particular style REALLY WELL, some people won't acknowledge that because they either want it to be more "mature" like Twilight Princess, or more artistic, colorful, whimsical like Wind Waker/Skyward Sword.

The only concern I have is with Nintendo's penchant for bloom-lighting. A few key Wii games that otherwise looked pretty nice (Metroid Prime 3, Mario Kart Wii) REALLY overdid the bloom-lighting effects to smooth everything out, which prevented things from looking as sharp and vivid as they should have. What worries me is the concept screenshots they showed for The Wind Waker HD were pretty heavy on that front. They looked nice and REALLY stylized and a nice evolution of Wind Waker's original graphics and art-style, but again, I just dont' want them to overdo the bloom and wash-out the colors and clarity.

But in the end, regardless of whether or not Nintendo ever tries to TRULY push Wii U to its limits, I'm pretty sure I'll be satisfied with how Wii U games look. I always appreciate Nintendo's design and art choices and truly just appreciate the fact that they dare to use colors other than brown or grey. Sidewalks, gravel, and bricks may look REALLY sharp and clear on PS4/Xbone with fantastic high-resolution textures...but they're still just cement, gravel, and bricks...

I'd take vivid colors and more simplistic textures over HYPERHD post-apocalyptic ruins any day of the week.

My but we forget Mario Galaxy quickly.

If we're talking about a semi-realistic or fully-realistic game that will bother to push the console, that's a better question, though Retro Studios might have a thing or two to say.