Nope.
1) The difference between Wii U and PS4 for this upcoming gen is much, much less than the difference between Wii and PS360. The PS360 were more powerful than the Wii by a factor of about 20x. To give you an example of the difference, the Wii didn't even have programmable shaders. The gulf wasn't just large, it was
vast.
Contrasted with that, the difference between Wii U is much smaller. Most tech-heads analysing the console reckon the PS4 and Nextbox will be between 3 and 5 times more powerful. Now, that may still sound like a lot, but then you have to factor in the next points:
2) Developers are focusing on making next-gen engines supremely scalable. In case anyone hadn't noticed, smartphones and tablets have cropped up in the last few years, and as much as we like to ***** about them, developers want in on that action. Engines aren't being designed just to run on high-end rigs, they're being designed to scale all the way down to smartphones. Epic has already got Unreal 3 Engine running on iPhones and iPads, and they've said they aim to do the same with Unreal 4. Just because these engines look amazing on high-end rigs, that doesn't mean they're being programmed to
only run on cutting edge software. This isn't 2007 any more. You can't sell games only to people with high end PCs if you're a developer. If Unreal 4 can be scaled back to run on something as meagre as a Smartphone, then the Wii U will have no problem running a scaled version of it, given its specs. Which leads to the next point:
3) The Wii U is still more powerful than current gen consoles. People like to moan that it's equivalent to current gen hardware, but teardowns and analyses of the GPU and CPU have shown this is not the case. The guys at Neogaf ordered some up-close pics of the GPU to analyse, and the whole thing has left them bamoozled. The Wii U's architecture is entirely custom, and no-one knows if the GPU is comparable to a Radeon 4770, 5550 or an e67670, given that it has comparable qualities to all of them. Right now, it's looking like Nintendo have done a total Gamecube: taken hardware, and customised it to within an inch of its life in order to get the most out of it. For those who remember, the Gamecube had specs nearly half that of the original Xbox, yet it was able to output visuals that equaled or sometimes even surpassed it. Rogue Squadron III on the Gamecube had the highest polygon count of any sixth-gen game. People at the time laughed at the specs, but Nintendo knows better than anyone else how to customise hardware to get performances way beyond what the specs on paper should achieve. That's not to say that the Wii U will be as powerful as the PS4 or Nextbox, but it is certainly going to be a powerful console in its own right. Just wait until Retro show off their latest game. I am certain that jaws will be dropped.
4) Lastly and most importantly- there has always been a technology gap between competing consoles. The last gen was the only one where the two competing 'core' consoles had nearly identical performance. In the previous gen, the PS2 went up against the Gamecube and the Xbox. The former had on-paper specs that outperformed the PS2, and the latter quite shat all over it. The PS2 had a CPU clocked at 294MHz. The Xbox had a CPU clocked at 733MHz. The PS2 had 32mb of RAM. The Xbox had 64mb. In fact, check the specs comparison
here. In practically every field, the PS2 was dwarfed by the Xbox.
And yet, the PS2 still got the majority of multiplatform games. And it still went on to win that generation.
Before then, you had the PS1 and the N64. And the gulf between the two was possibly even vaster. Here's a hint- only one of those two consoles was capable of early anti-aliasing. It wasn't the PS1. The N64 had a ludicrously higher polygon count, better lighting, better draw distances... the only advantage that the PS1 had was that because it was using CDs, it could store much more data for textures. Unfortunately, even with those improved textures, the models still looked like jaggedy, low-poly crap.
Again, multiplatform titles still existed. And the PS1 went on to win that generation.
So no, the Wii U isn't in trouble. Specs have never defined which console is the most successful. Acting as if the PS4 is now guaranteed to shit all over the Wii U because it's got an 8 core CPU and 8GB of RAM totally ignores the past 20 years of industry trends.
This also ignores another point: development costs.
Development costs this generation have already been stretched to near breaking point. Developing games with the high polygon counts that result in the sort of visuals gamers want takes time and money. Developers have already started shutting on a weekly basis because of this rise in budget, something which is not the sign of a healthy industry. If developing games on next-gen cutting edge hardware requires developers to bankrupt themselves, or risk their entire livelihood on the outcome of each and every title they develop, then quite simply they won't make the jump. The Wii, DS and 3DS found incredible favour amongst Japanese developers, simply because they weren't as expensive to develop for, and Japan is in something of a recession right now. If PS4 games constantly need $100 million to get made, then expect Western developers to start taking a leaf from their Japanese brethren. Whether that means developing for cheaper consoles like the Wii U or 3DS, or if that means forsaking consoles entirely and going to PC, iOS and Android. We're already seeing this happen, with more and more developers jumping ship to develop mobile apps or low-key PC games.
Developers are not made of money. If they cannot afford to make games that make the most of an 8-core CPU and cutting edge GPU, then they will go somewhere else where they
can afford to make games.
