The person, communicating anonymously from a studio currently building a Wii U title, said the new Nintendo console could achieve roughly twice the processing and graphical potential of Microsofts current generation machine.

While twice the power of an Xbox 360 is broadly above market expectations, Develop's source claimed this is in fact less than some studios had expected. "I've heard [a project designer] complain it's underpowered compared to what Nintendo announced, resulting in people having to de-scale their plans," the source added.

Nintendos persistence with non-disclosure agreements means that it has been difficult for Develop to cross-examine the sources claim, which was made late last year.

However, yesterday a separate insider source told IGN that the next generation Xbox will be "six times as powerful" as its predecessor  the key addition being that this will mean it yields a "200 per cent greater performance than Wii U".

That unverified calculation, if true, echoes claims from the Develop source who claims the Wii U is far more powerful than current expectations.