You say that, but the difference between the PS2 and the PS3 is pretty marked. Mrs 3DOkid was playing Final Fantasy XII on the PS2 (she was playing it on the PS3 but that's beside the point) and it looks brilliant for a PS2 game - for a PS3 game it's quite lacking. very lacking to be honest. I would go so far as to say the difference between the 8bit and the 16bit systems was probably less than the difference between PS2 and PS3.
The gap between the GC and Wii is quite narrow but Nintendo, as a company, is odd. It's an engineering driven company, but old style Japanese mind set, not Western style mind set or modern Japanese mindset.
Back in the 70s/80s the Japanese stole the home consumer market by taking existing technology and making it cheaper and in some ways better or making it more efficient or making it more efficiently.
Not so western companies at the time. Their approach remained the same: bigger, faster, louder, better. Western companies got trounced, or became more Japanese. (Ford is a good example of company that turned it around, Rover/British Leyland a good example of one that didn't.)
The Japanese used there approach with cars, TVs, sewing machines, calculators, lots of things, but never before Video Games.
Video Games traditionally are very close to the bleeding edge of technology and it sort of suited Western thinking. Atari, Sinclair, Commodore, IBM...
The Japanese fitted into video games because culturally their foundations are very different. There cultural foundation around Gods, life and death, women, violence, chivalry is sufficient different to make games interesting. And plus their artistic style is very pretty. They paint a pretty video game.
Nintendo have wrestled with the games market for years, look at the way Nintendo tries to control it's supply chain - cartridges, custom CDs, licensing - classic Japanese business model. Their big difference is Miyamoto, he is their lucky charm.
Going back to the 1970s, westerners clung on to some markets. Super Cars. Weapons. Fashion. Anything where you needed innovation, and that innovation was more important than price or build quality. It could be flamboyant, pricey, cranky, difficult and a big gamble - stuff the Japanese weren't good at. Video games belongs in that group. Video Games are a super luxury item.
Of cause, in the 1990s (late 80s) that all changed. The Japanese got under-cut by their neighbours (the Chinese and the Koreans) who could produce things using, to varying degrees of success, Japanese work processes but cheaper than the now middle-class Japanese could muster or afford.
So they became like us. Innovative designers, rather than manufacturers. Sony and it's PS1 is an example of the successful progression, Panasonic M2 is an example of it's failure and old business culture.
So - where was I going? It's all very interesting but the Wii future, in my opinion, even with the casual gamers, will need to justify their next console purchase. And how do they plan oon doing that? Nintendo have built a market that says "WE don't need flashy graphics and the-wow-factor - we just want games"... well great...
You see, Nintendo can't rest on the Wii forever but will the masses of casual gamers/grannies/lepers buy a new one? Probably not. Why should they? There is nothing wrong with the Wii?
Nintendo can't use the fashion accessory tactic again, it barely worked for the iPod, and the masses can justify another iPod to themselves, (20gb, 40Gb, 80Gb?) I can't see another Wii (Wii too?) being sold in the same amounts as the Wii One. The consumer market is fickle.
I'm a gamer, born and bred, and always will be, the casual market are just that - and they are easily bored. Nintendo have been kept afloat, through all their arrogance and stupidity by it's loyal Miyamoto fans.
Bottom-line: Nintendo need me, and they won't get me with third rate technology.
If the gaps between the PS3 and the PS4 is not much then maybe my era is truly over but I think the jump to the next-next gen will no doubt be as huge. Games are still far away from photo-realistic, something they tried to promise me for the 3DO generation, and here we are 15 years later and not a step closer really but the jumps have been huge.
I don't think I'm a minority at all. (or I hope I'm not) The games like Gears of War (not really my bag) Halo 3, Uncharted, CoD4, Assassins Creed, etc., kind of suggest that I'm still representative of the majority.
Sure Nintendogs sold a few, Wii Fit will sell a few more and Brain Games too -- but it's just a fad. Christmas 2008 the casual gamer will be but a memory and Nintendo will begin wishing they had fitted an extra CPU and had spent their time worrying about voxels, bit-rates, and polygon draw rates than farting about with flappy-wappy controller.
Mark 3DOkids words.
Why???
But I do respect your opinion, and won't argue w/you like a crazed fanboy. (I save those arguments for Primal Rage & Cyberdillo) 
