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And that brings up my biggest concern - that being, is this really enough of a departure from the 360 or PS3 to draw the attention of non-Nintendo gamers? Will loyal owners of the SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, etc., upgrade? Most likely. Will gamers that already own a 360 or PS3 (or both) make the purchase, knowing that true next gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft aren't that far off? Doubtful. That leaves casual gamers, and the issue here comes back to price. The Wii offered simple, fun group games for when you had friends over, and wasn't prohibitively expensive. A lot of non-gamers own a Wii, and a lot households with a 360 or PS3 added a Wii as well.
I think Nintendo would have been better off focusing on making games for the Wii that are actually good - truly good Wii titles are few and far between. The Wii U risks being Nintendo's new Gamecube when it got clobbered by the PS2 and XBox. Many PS3/360 owners either own a tablet computer, or will get one as competition drives prices down. PS3/PSP connectivity already exists. AAA 3rd party titles like Bioshock, Mass Effect, Fallout, COD, etc., are already ingrained as PS3/360 must plays. XBox Live is the gold standard of online play. We'll certainly have to wait and see, but if Nintendo is looking to bite into the HD market, it risks indifference from the 360/PS3 crowd, and it risks turning off the casual gamer that isn't interested in plunking down $300-400 for a Wii upgrade. My wife and I own a 360 and a Wii, but at this point I'd be more interested in adding a PS3 for the game line-up as opposed to a Wii U. And my wife, who loves Mario (we have an old refurbished NES and SNES), doubtful will have interest in a new Wii, since we hardly play the old one as is. We are the definition of a gamer and a casual gamer, and while the Wii U is interesting, we'd need to see a lot more to even consider one right now."
Twenty years from now when we're all playing video games in holographic chambers surrounded by 3-D environments, someone will look back at games like Bioshock or Mass Effect and lament about how such a two dimensional experience could ever have made players feel immersed in and connected to the undersea city of Rapture or the starship Normandy...and that someone will make me just a little sad. Hey, my wife and I bought an old refurbished NES just so we could play Super Mario - on a Friday night when plans fall through, a little Mario nostalgia can make for a very pleasant evening. Even if jumping on mushrooms was so 20 years ago."