The first statement is total nonsense, PS3 had a 7800 gtx era gpu, which was well over a year old when the PS3 was released. Whole thing is typical garbage internet 'journalism' to get a few clicks.
The console gpu's, I really can't recall the PS3 side, but the 360 side had effectively a much better architecture, and the low level api + unified memory meant that a console and PC with the same gpu gave a significant advantage to the console in usable power even if theoretical power was the same.
This gen, I'll expect say more from the PS4 gpu than a desktop 2tflop card, due to architecture/unified mem/current API lead, but there is already 5tflop cards, and those hugely powerful 3.79tflop 7970 was available effectively 2 years before the consoles went with 1.8/1.2tflop solutions.
The last gen did effectively have more power than anything available and the next gen gpu cards didn't have as much of a power difference as already exists this gen.
With Mantle and other potential API improvements the huge huge huge api advantage on consoles is also shrinking massively.
nintendo cannot afford to make a proper next gen console with proper graphics.
they got lucky with the wii having a unique fad gameplay and sold on hype.
if the wii didn't have a sensor bar and IR and movement sensor input nintendo would have pulled out of the console market and the wii would have been it's last console.
it sold well though because it had those things and other consoles didn't at the time. it was marketed at children and families, etc and did well.
the wii u has put them back into their place and they probably won't make another console again most likely.
they shall move to games only and handhelds, but even then handhelds could also possibly die out due to smartphones and tablets taking their already small market and diluting it.
I really don't know how Nintendo so massively miss read this. Anyone with half a brain could see their own sales numbers dropping massively before the Wii U, anyone could just ask 100 people to list everyone they knew with a Wii and work out which of them would buy again.
My parents bought into the fad of "hey it will be hilarious at dinner parties", I told them they'd never use it, they had friends over once, played it a bit realised they didn't like it and never used it again. The sheer number of Wii's that probably never got used past a month shows the power of media telling so many of these non gamers they'll love it. Most people could understand the fad while it was happening, let alone 3 years later when so many Wii's went unused. So they made another severely underpowered box and assumed everyone would buy a second console they would never use.
Unfortunately the saying fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, works perfectly here. The people that got fooled into buying a Wii weren't falling for it again, even if the Wii U was epic there would be serious "I got conned into the Wii, I don't believe the Wii U is good" thinking going on.
