Nickname said:
Are those specs really 6 years of progress compared with the xbox or 5 years of progress compared with the ps3?
They don’t have to be, neither MS or Sony are anywhere near releasing a nextgen console. Nintendo is simply releasing a console using the best current-gen technology, if MS or Sony were to release another right now it would be in the same ballpark.
Also worth noting is that IBM has made very few improvements to the original cell processor and discontinued work on it a few years ago so anything Sony does will likely use a different architecture, making it incompatible with PS3 games. They could pay IBM to continue working on it but that would get expensive really fast. This also affects MS as the XBOX360 is running a processor based partly on the cell architecture. MS could easily use the same processor family that Nintendo is using though as the instruction sets are virtually identical that what they’ve been using.
As to sales, Nintendo’s sales have dropped pretty bad over the last year or so thanks to the economy and Kinect/Move. Most of the newer multi-platform games are not being released on the Wii due to the processing power and the loss of sales is driving down profits. With more processing and video power than the competitors they would not only be able to get those games on their system but would also give developers the ability to put more in the games. As good as a shooter looks on the XBOX360, imagine how good it could look on something with 15-20% more power.