A few developers offered some insight regarding the next-gen nature of Wii U and its potential in the latest issue of GamesMaster. Below youll find comments from Ubisofts Gabrielle Shrager, Mass Effect 3s external producer, and more.

ZombiU senior scriptwriter Gabrielle Shrager:

Next-gen? Or Next-next-gen? Depends what you mean by that. With the Wii U, Nintendo has definitely recognized the importance of fast chips speeds and cutting-edge graphics, but that is not the hart and soul of the machine.'

Frozenbytes Mikael Haveri:

Wii U is next-gen in the way the Wii was. Clearly revolutionary in many ways, but possibly slightly less on the pure power side. It is a reasonable guess that the next round of competition will trump the specs by a bit, but the important question is if they will also implement a touch interface.

So in this way the GamePad is the most important new addition, clearly combining the console experience with the now-very-popular tablets.

All of the games are designed whit the GamePad as an integral part, and if that proves to be even nearly as popular as the Wii Remote, then Nintendo might actually define next gen.

FIFA 13 line producer Matt Prior:

The Wii U is an exciting new piece of hardware that offer opportunities that other consoles cant, simply because of the uniqueness of the platform, in particular the GamePad.

We wanted to ensure that we utilized that uniqueness and delivered features that utilized the GamePad, not just in a gimmicky way but in ways that added real value and improvements to the game. Just as important,