nmeseth

When addressing the hardware performance of the Wii U, you have to take a few variables into consideration. Note, this does involve a lot of discussion of their competitors, as competition drives business.

-Profit.

Now, what I mean by that is that Nintendo has had more profit from their consoles than both Microsoft and Sony. This gives their investors/share holders/etc more confidence when investing into the next console generation. This fact, along with the fact that we do not have any specifications for the Wii U, quite to the contrary, the hardware is not set in stone yet.

Microsoft and Sony will probably have a hard time convincing their share holders/etc that the company spending millions of dollars to develop a new console at the same speed as Nintendo. Sony, as a company, is struggling to say the least. They sold their share of the HDTV The Wii U is in for some good news, because Sony announced it is sticking to a 10 year life-span for the PS3. I don't think their company can afford the hundreds of millions of dollars it would take to pump out a console that would rival today's PC's.


-Hardware

I really hope that the Wii U is not only planning on MATCHING the PS3/Xbox 360's performance, but blowing it out of the freakin' water. Because if the Wii U only matches the performance of this generation of gaming consoles...it's still FIVE years old. The main example for this, is "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" You look at this, put it on the PC, and immediately, IMMEDIATELY, you know its a console game. The resolution of the textures is 1000^2, and users are modding the game to support 4000^2. 400% higher quality. It is painfully obvious that the current generation of HD consoles are barely overlapping the area of quality that people consider "High Quality."





So if they really wanted to pull the hardcore gamers into their support (I'm not sure they do) and get rid of the "Kiddy" attitude that the PS3/360 fanboys have towards them. I'm talking about console market DOMINATION.

-They need to make people KNOW that the Wii U is BETTER than the PS3, in terms of processing power and graphics. The Wii U needs to move in and absolutely shred them to pieces.  

-They need to express support for the old school gaming controllers. Non-casual gamers need to know they aren't on the backburner. I'm talking about releasing a new duel analog stick controller, like a new gamecube controller. Just releasing that sort of controller would give hardcore developers and fans alike to look at the Wii U more seriously. (The Wii Classic Controller Plus doesn't count, btw)

-Gain the support of third party developers. Among the ranks of Infinity Ward, Bethesda Game Studios, and the development studios that pump out AAA titles. (Not saying THOSE companies, I'm saying those type of games). Although this wouldn't happen until 1-2 years after the launch of the Wii U, because those companies need to know they can commit a large amount of resources to a game, and get results (profit, obv)

-Have more games/series with storylines instead of just gameplay. Some of the most die-hard support for games come from when a game has a very emotional, passionate, and immersive world. These qualities are what place games in the ranks of timeless, legendary, must-have, must-play games. Like The Legend of Zelda, The Elder Scrolls, Gears of War, Halo, Mass Effect, obviously among many others. It's these passionate, die-hard fans that push these games. Just take a look at the Elder Scrolls community. (Which I am an absolute self-admitting crazed fanboy of) The lore involved with that series is more exciting, more intricate, more immersive than any game I have ever played. Hell. It's more immersive than real life. It's that moment when you want to be a part of a video game world more than real life. As stupid/crazy as that sounds, that's why we play video games. Because they aren't real, and they can't happen.

That's just what I think they would have to do to seize control of the console market. But although that'd be amazing, I highly doubt it will happen. With the marketing campaign of the Wii U already, it is conveying messages of little storyline (Save for zelda) and a lot of gameplay. Family-friendly games (Kid games, essentially). Although more than just kids and families will enjoy these games...it's this kind of message that gives power to the microsoft and sony market.

But it comes down to the fact that Nintendo has gotten results and profit from the motion-controlled family-friendly market, and I sadly, I don't think they would even release a new classic-controller for the Wii U, much less anything else I've talked about.

P.S. I completely and utterly rambled here, I didn't really bother to re-read it to see if the paragraph structure and logic made sense. So I apologize if you get lost in a few places.