TLOU has  good graphics and is a linear game. It's a lot harder to put amazing visuals in an open world game.

Except that as time goes on it becomes obvious the relationship between graphical beauty and raw power is definitely not a linear one.

http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2013-02/why-playstation-4-announcement-was-weirdest-pitch-ever

In fact, both technical development and the eye's perception of detail are logarithmic functions, but it's becoming increasingly obvious they aren't the same logarithmic functions, either. "Imagine if" arguments are incurably deceptive. The hardware is now better at churning out detail than your eye is at absorbing it.

Clearly, the PS4 and XB1 do have more raw power. No one denies this. The question is, however, if that increased power will actually be able to deliver notable graphical improvements. For my money, I think not. Sony and Microsoft both overshot the optimum mark for their systems because they have third party developers and multiplatform titles. The power is a buffer to allow thirt party developers to hit the butter zone with less effort.

Nintendo? Most of their games are first party. They don't have to worry nearly as much about the console's power going to waste. Will the Wii U show some graphical weakness compared to the other consoles? Probably. Nintendo clearly undershot the butter zone to fit the gamepad in. But even so, the difference is likely to be minimal.

The fact is Nintendo's R&D seems to have become weaker in recent years or they were hit by budget concerns because they should have been better prepped for the HD era. The last major game was by an internal team for the Wii was Skyward Sword, even funneling some of their team members over to 3DS development the lack of preparation for the Wii U is the major failure and according to Miyamoto it is primarily because they didn't have enough people.

Nintendo has several studios they can go to for development, they just choose not to do so and are now hopefully realizing the error of their ways in being to fiscal instead of trying to push boundaries.

I think most people with a half-decent gaming PC would tell you that the difference is pretty significant, and that's based on multiplatform games that were designed around the HD consoles. With developer moving to designing games with extra power as the core, we'll be able to see the major differences that extra power gives.

The argument that Wii U wont have quality games is silly. Is the Last of us not a good game? Then why are you trying to imply that that every game that came out before Wii U is crap? You cant just look at one console and say it wont be able to make quality games when it is superior to every other console to come before it.

Reminds me of the time the editor of game informer said we wouldn't see quality games on Wii due to hardware. The fact he called every game before wii crap was lost on him. He just wanted to trash Nintendo without thinking of what he was saying

Seems the same thing is being pointed out here. Its really a silly point and anyone making it, does not know what they are talking about.
When you make a stupid claim like Wii U wont have quality games, you are not just taking shots at Nintendo but every console before them

Nice to know a someone thinks every game on PS3 wasn't a quality game because its hardware is inferior to Wii U.

The Gamecube says hello. It had superior hardware to the PS2 and very few games took advantage of it. In fact the PS2 is perfect example of why studios matter. It had inferior hardware but there weren't many Xbox and GC games that looked better than the PS2's best.

iI've been on internet forums around graphics whores long enough to know who are th shallow ones.

Pfft...Nintendo has plenty of studios with just as much talent/capability as Naughty Dog and others. Retro, EAD Tokyo, Monolith Soft and the Zelda team are all more than capable of pushing the Wii U to its limits. Thing is...they don't really NEED to do that yet. This holiday is about getting solid games out to gain momentum and improve the Wii U library and its sales as a result of that. Next years games are all a step UP graphically...as one would expect. And the same thing will happen the following year. Uncharted 1 WASN'T very impressive, and Uncharted 2 came out in 2009...3 years after the PS3 launch. So, we should be looking for Nintendo to start pushing the Wii U's capabilities graphically to new levels starting with the 2015 crop of games. It's VERY likely that Retro will work on Metroid or Star Fox after DK...EAD Tokyo have already hinted that they may work on another 3D single-player Mario game a'la Galaxy after 3D World...and the Zelda team already has the NEW Zelda game will into development. Obviously the Wii U is not as powerful as Xbone/PS4 and so it will NEVER achieve the levels that those two systems can graphically...but to imply that Nintendo doesn't have studios capable of pushing its own hardware to the max is just silly.

Some day you'll understand what I was saying...maybee.

I agree