In a random comparison, MK8 looks better than most games on PS360 and isn't possible on last-gen hardware. Technically absolutely outstanding and showing that WiiU is *not* on par with PS360, it is a lot above. But I fear that we won't see many games showing us...

Damn you Nintendo! For the first time in my life you actually have me wanting one of your systems! MK8 is definitely one of the best looking 8th Gen games.

No you're absolutely right about that, and I didn't want to take this argument to an extreme of claiming you can tell everything form a crappy screenshot.

My point was about things that are much more obvious, like for example from the videos in the OP you can see that characters & scenery don't seem to reflect in the water.  It's not a qualitative thing, or something you need to have insider knowledge to know, it's a "can you see it or not" thing.

This screenshot... well things look nicely environment mapped and it looks gorgeous.  I can't really say it needs gen 8 hardware to do it or not though.  We can assume that it's pushing Wii U's GPU hard therefore it would need to be cut down to work on PS3/360, but it's hard to see something that would make it impossible to run on that 7 year old hardware.

Off those screens looks similar in quality to ModNation Racer. But that's a bad way to compare, must see direct feed before one can really pass judgement.

It looks fantastic. It just proves that you can still make beautiful games, despite being on so called "underpowered" hardware. I guess Nintendo proved the critics wrong once again.

Furthermore, the gap between PS4/One and the Wii U isn't that large like many perceived, sure in terms of raw numbers and other measurement it might have it beat, but Mario Kart 8 shows that the Wii U can dance with the beefier boys - that much is clear now.

Comparing it to other Kart Racers wouldn't be a fair comparison because this is a first-party game from NIntendo and they are likely to have been working on this game before MK7 came out. Because it's not out of the ordinary to draw art for your next next game.

Let's just think hypothetically here.. if Nintendo was making MK8 exclusively for PS3 and had 4 years to optimize on the cell it would be pretty darn close.

It can be done on a PS3. There's more realistic graphics on the WiiU already like AC:Black Flag.

I agree graphics is perception. Not saying MK8 looks worst than black flag, but I'm saying realistic graphic art style takes more processing power. I think MK8 looks good for what it is.

People who are saying it's the best looking WiiU game by far and best looking gen 8 game should come back to reality. That's just your nostalgia and fan-ship talking. I think MK8 is getting the same treatmeant as like a Halo or Arkam Knight or a Zelda. It gets a free pass because it is "Mario Kart". Try to be objective atleast!

No, you missed the point.

Lets take a boring flat wall and utilise it as an example.
You have objects sitting next to it, but it's still a flat wall right?
Then you apply a brick texture to replace the old white texture. Now it's a flat brick wall.
Then you "bake"  shadowing onto the brick wall texture, then you bake some lighting to give the individual bricks some depth.

Suddenly, the art has made what was a flat, boring wall into something with detail and with the baked-in shadowing and lighting, it doesn't require extra processing time.

I don't disagree you need hardware to assist with artistic vision, but Nintendo isn't the best example, their games generally aren't graphical powerhouses in terms of fidelity.

Best wait till Digital Foundrys analysis. They'll settle art vs tech better than anyone here can even hope to.

Artistic vision is pretty subjective. And in my case I say Valkyria Chronicles wipes the floor with everything art-wise. Sega created an artistically sublime game on technology considerably older than Wii U. So no you really don't need power beyond 7th gen tech to make artistically beautiful games.