This has been bothering me for sometime now. While for a bit the Wii U will be the top console in just a few years the other next gen consoles will be released. With such a large gap in the release dates of the consoles, we can be almost sure that the Wii U's competition will be more powerful which could utimately lead to another Wii incident in which the Wii U doesn't get as many good games because it can't handle certain games. Maybe I'm just overeacting but this is the reasoning that has successfully kept all of the people I know from wanting a Wii U. Should we worry about this?

Most likely not, I mean the XBox 360 came out a full year before the PS3 yet the PS3 isn't that much more powerful than it. Plus Nintendo is making sure that the Wii U is as every bit as powerful as Sony and Microsoft's future systems will be so I'm not too concerned. Either way Nintendo never fails to deliver am amazing console with amazing games to match it.

Let's talk about this in 2014...

What Nintendo said is that WiiU would be at least as powerfull as current XBoX/PS3, not that WiiU might be as powerfull as future XBoX/PS4. BTW, as far as I remember PS4 was announced for 2013, I think that no specs have been revealed about it except that this time Sony will do different than with PS3 (where they were losing money during several years due to the building costs).

I am not worried about this mainly cause of when the Wii U will be released in contrast to MS and Sony's next system. If that does end up being the case by the time I get a Wii U and by the time MS releases their next console I will have the money saved up for that console.

Well, the 3DS could be a serious threat. I mean, it does almost everything the Wii U controller does, with 3D, and you can take it out of the living room!

PS3 and PSVITA could be a combination of epic proportions when it comes to playing with a decent sized touch screen and streaming games. yea the psvita might be missing some bottom buttons like L2 and R2 but i think the bottom touch pad would make up for that. the demo for psvita working with ps3 at E3 with that diablo like game might have been cool but not everyone is going to buy a psvita and PS3 just to have the 2 consoles work together. but think of the potential with a better form factor than the wii u controller along with a capacitive touch screen when the wii u controller has a resistive one. and again you have the bottom touchpad which is another difference between wii u controller and psvita. i might be wrong but there may also be a bottom touch pad on wii u controller

NOPE SONY SUCKS. Microsoft might bring a little competition though.

Fix'd

Wii U will probably be out Q2-Q4 2012. Power wise it seems to be more powerful than the PS3 (which it should be considering the PS3 is 5 years old) but not a significantly better like a whole new generation. The gap seems to be more like the difference between Dreamcast and the original Xbox.

Microsoft's library is drying up a bit and Kinect is getting heavy focus just now, if Kinect Sales do slow down significantly by April 2012 I can see Microsoft announcing their new console at E3 2012 for a 2013 release (or possibly Winter 2012 if they decide it's worth it)
No doubt it'll be backwards compatible with Kinect and Xbox 360 but I'm expecting them to have a significantly more powerful console than the Wii U.

The Playstation 3 is still doing pretty well, sales are strong and it has quite a few strong upcoming releases yet and they have the PS Vita coming out at the end of 2011 or in 2012. So I imagine they won't be releasing a next gen console until around Q4 2013 at the earliest. Presumably it'll be backwards compatible too with move and probably PS3 games. Whether it'll be the most powerful console of the eighth generation remains to be seen but if they release last it'll be a high probability.

the Wii U's competition is Apple

Just...Apple.

even if they make the next gen consoles more powerful, it wont be as significant as the wii vs the PS3
at the very worst, we may see graphical downgrades like on console ports of PC games, which is still a lot better than the wii being left out completely

2014...not going to be here..mayans said so. apple seems smarter than microsft n sony anyways....new apple console will force nintendo to innovate even more.

I'd hope not for Nintendo's sake.

Apple's already won that one.

Apple dont make me laugh there not a videogame company, and this is coming from someone who loves apple

Speaking of Apple, did you all hear about iPad 3 being in production soon and possibly even released in August?

Damn, wasn't iPad2 released.. 4 months ago? And then people talk about Nintendo

Why I mention that? Because the irony meter is filling up.

But yeah, I think Apple is competing with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. It's just, well... It seems like the big 3 are not really paying too much attention to Apple as they could be. Well, it's not my problem. I'll just be playing whatever game I like

The Apple competition idea is an interesting one. I was reading an article the other day about all the new short range, high speed wireless standards coming out and one in particular caught my eye for it's speed. It's called WiGig and it can do 7Gbps over it's short range. Kinda like a really, really high speed bluetooth.

So that sort of tech is probably what Nintendo is using for the Wii U and I wouldn't be that shocked if the iPad3/4 had something like that built in. I'm not sure if they'd use it exactly like the Wii U but they could do some interesting things. It'd potentially allow you to stream videos wirelessly from your mobile device to a TV, it'd allow you to stream video from a PC/Mac or Apple TV like thing wirelessly, it'd allow you to copy data quickly and wirelessly, it'd even allow you to use a computer as a co-processor for your mobile device.

So in that sense, if what you're talking about is mobile devices doing high end interactions with other devices wirelessly, expect a lot of "competitors" to the Wii U.

I expect the Wii U will be out before Nintendo's fiscal year. Just like the 3DS, it'll most likely be rushed so they can bad the numbers on their financial year so because the Wii and DS sales are bombing and the 3DS sales aren't what they told investors what they would want it to be.

I expect to sell well, but not as well as they want it to sell because it was rushed and the launch line up will be weak.
I expect Sony and MS to counter with price drops on their systems 50 bucks, putting the Wii U (which will most likely be 300-400) ad a disadvantage to a $150 360 and $249 PS3.
Apple will be Apple and eat into the casual audience in whatever form. Big or small.

In the end, I think it'll be EXACTLY how the 3DS went. Sold well and made money, but not the pile Nintendo wants it to sell. Making shareholders freak out and yell at Nintendo.

Aside from the price cuts, I don't think competition will do much.

Competition means Nintendo will be on their toes more. Competition is usually good

This is true.