Nintendo Wii U Power Can't Be Gauged Just Yet, Ubisoft Says

The power of the Nintendo Wii U in terms of hardware can't be measured just yet, at least according to Ubisoft, as the developer kits sent to third party companies aren't final and programmers still need to figure them out.

The Nintendo Wii U surprised a lot of people when it was revealed on stage of the E3 2011 conference last week, but the lack of any concrete technical specifications made lots of people wonder just how powerful the new console is.

Yesterday, an analyst revealed that according to his developer sources, the Nintendo Wii U is roughly 50% more powerful than the PlayStation 3 or the Xbox 360 consoles.

Now, according to Ubisoft Quebec's senior technical architect, Marc Parenteau, it's a bit early to actually gauge the power of the Wii U as opposed to current consoles.

"It's too early to make comparisons with that sort of thing," he said to Kotaku. "We're still learning how to maximize the usage of the hardware," he went on, saying, "The hardware is evolving a bit also. The dev kits are not final, so there's still some before the actual... uh... before we can make comparisons."

Parenteau also says that developers, which are used to the PS3 or Xbox 360, now need to get accustomed to the new device, start working out its internal hardware configuration and can then start drawing some comparisons.

The Ubisoft Quebec executive also mentions that, in terms of hardware and how the games can take advantage of it, the Wii U isn't all that different from the regular Wii, so developers won't need to learn a completely new programming standard in order to make titles for the upcoming console.

As of yet, however, Nintendo is quite secretive about the Wii U, releasing only a few details about its unique controller, while limiting itself to saying that more information will be showcased in the following months, ahead of the Wii U's release next year.