During the E3 2011 keynote for Nintendo we saw a lot of beautiful footage outlining the capabilities of the suped-up Wii U platform. Most of those watching will probably recall a highly stylized reel with a bird flying past a cherry tree and a pond full of beautifully rendered koi. However, later on in the reel there was some elements that seemed to be action and sports games with blazing graphics, hard-hitting activity, and other elements we’ve come to expect from harder hitting consoles like the PS3 and Xbox 360.

Well, as it turns out, some of that footage is from those consoles.

In an interview with GameTrailers mere hours after the fact, Nintendo of America chief Reggie Fils-Amie admitted some of the video was taken from the console’s counterparts. This news brought to us by Engadget,

Nintendo’s E3 2011 keynote yesterday gave the world its first official look at the all-new Wii U hardware plus (we thought) a glimpse at the graphical capabilities of its next console. As it turns out, the impressive list of upcoming games for the 2012-bound console was just that, a list, with the visuals we saw on screen coming from PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of said titles. Nintendo of America chief Reggie Fils-Aime has confirmed that to be the case in an interview with GameTrailers, where he also points out that the eventual Wii U games will look at least as good as their PS3 / 360 counterparts. Which is why, in his eyes, it’s okay to show us those games being played on the competition’s (current-gen) hardware. He does remind us that the Wii U will be delivering graphics at a 1080p resolution, and points to the garden tech demo that also graced E3 as an indicator of what can be done with Nintendo’s next console. That’s all well and good, but maybe tell us in advance next time, Reggie?

At least he was quick to make the subject known before fans caught on.

All that aside, it’s been confirmed that the Wii U is indeed a monstrously powerful console, a worthy next-gen successor that will play in the same field as PS3 and Xbox360 by wearing an AMD Radeon GPU on its digital sleeve.

“AMD shares Nintendo’s excitement for the new HD entertainment experience planned for the Wii U console,” says AMD’s Silicon Engineering corporate vice president David Wang. “We’re proud to provide our leading-edge HD multimedia graphics engine to power the new entertainment features of the console. Nintendo is a highly-valued customer and we look forward to the launch in 2012.”

As one of the two best-known PC gaming graphics card makers, AMD helps set the standards for graphics power when it comes to gaming PCs. The fact that they’re rolling their own for Wii U and that card will be pumping out 1080p graphics means we can expect Nintendo’s new console to provide at least enough power to get back into the game with strong titles over the next year.

No exact specifications are to be had, but it’ll be nice to see a press reel of footage developed from actual technology demos in the future so that we can baseline our expectations of the console.

An authentic gameplay reel would be a good start.