Well the rumors have been circling for a while now that Nintendo is far along in development with their Wii successor but those rumors seem to be picking up steam. Sources including Game Informer and IGN are claiming that multiple sources inside the big N have confirmed that the Wii successor will be unveiled at or before this years E3. While that may seem sudden lets take a look back at Nintendo console history:
Nintendo Entertaiment System: released October 18, 1985
Super NES: released August 23, 1991
Nintendo 64: released September 29, 1996
Gamecube: November 18 2001
Wii: November 19, 2006
So everything there seems to indicate a 5-6 year cycle between releases. Of course the Wii has been insanely successful for Nintendo so its possible that they will push it out further then before. But lets look at the facts, chances are the system will release in the fall and Nintendo has a history of unveiling new systems the year before release. So I suspect based on these rumors that they unveil the new system this year and we see a release in the November 2012 timeframe. Of course its also possible that this new system is really just the HD Wii with hard drive that everyone has speculated about and Nintendo has denied since the release of the Wii. If thats the case then yes a release this fall seems likely.
Official release date aside I think its safe to assume Nintendo will unveil something regarding new hardware by E3 2011 at the latest. So what can we expect from this new system? Here is a list of items gathered from rumors, comments by Nintendo and pure speculation.
- Its definitely going to be HD, although your definition of HD may vary from Nintendo
- It won’t be 3d, in the traditional sense. Nintendo has stated that 3d only works in the isolated, one player environment that a handheld offers. That and they have no control over the screen its played on so how can they assure that 3d works for everyone? Lets not forget that Nintendo makes game systems, not several hundred dollar entertainment components and they don’t want you to forget that either. The only way they do 3d, is if its something more then a 3d image from your TV, like say the virtual reality headset or glasses shown in some of the faked material before the Wii was released or perhaps even a 3d image not on a screen…
- Which leads me to the next point. This is a little shaky so take it with a huge grain of salt but some sources claim the next system will include a projector of some sort. I’m guessing the technology to product quality 3d holograms in your living room is still a ways off but it would be an evolution in gaming…
- I’m not sure we will see what we all consider today to be the standard hard drive but I think saving digitally distributed games will definitely be addressed in some form. The Virtual Console/WiiWare/digital distribution isn’t going away. Whether that means a physical hard drive, bigger memory cards or further movement towards cloud based gaming remain to be seen. Nintendo has never been on the cutting edge of this technology however so we will see.
- Rumors abound that the next system will have the ability to play DVD, more specifically blu-ray. Not sure I buy it, especially with the ever growing popularity of streaming/on demand video from the internet. Where is the need to admit that Blu-Ray is a superior format when its your competitors bread and butter? If anything I would guess the next system will be more interconnected with the internet and not worry about playing movies in the traditional disc based format.
- Continuing to simplify the friend code system. The 3ds made some steps towards this and Nintendo’s next console will continue that trend but they won’t be getting rid of it.
- Some sources are claiming that the system will be significantly more powerful then the PS3 or Xbox 360. I’d like a definition of “significantly” but it has been 5 years since the Xbox and PS3 have jumped on the scene so a jump in power is reasonable.
- Nintendo has put in a lot of work in this generation of hardware, and that of the DS/3DS, in building an structure for connectivity with their systems and I suspect this continues. How often have we heard Nintendo throw around ideas like automatically connecting with other systems. I would expect this to expand to the next level. Remember, evolutionary game concepts are less about hardware and more about software and how that hardware is used. That’s not to say powerful hardware doesn’t help, it just won’t be the focus.
- Backwards compatibility with the Wii. This possibly includes some up-scaling of Wii games on the new hardware. I would expect that they move away from support of Gamecube disks and those games start popping up on the next gen virtual console but they definitely won’t be flushing away the Wii market anytime soon. How do you get 80 million Wii buyers to buy your next system? Tell them it plays the Wii games they already own. Oh and this probably also means that the Wii Sensor bar will either be built into the system or somehow included in whatever new tech they use.
- A new controller. Rumors abound about what this new controller entails but several individuals claim that it will included an HD screen on the controller which may or may not be touchscreen although that sounds like it flies in the face of the “cheap” hardware that is Nintendo’s bread and butter. I know they won’t be mimicking the control-less Kinect but a camera of some sort may not be out of the realm of possibility for increased motion gaming and interactivity. One thing we have to consider, regardless of what this new control scheme looks like its still going to need to accomplish the traditional waggle of the wii-mote of today in order to capture the backwards compatibility. Either that or perhaps the new console will natively support the wii-mote in addition to the new controller. I’m sure Nintendo is also actively considering how they can support traditional controller gaming. For all its waggleness, a good chunk of games on the Wii are played with the Wii-mote sideways in my hands. We can think of advancements in player input all we want but the old methods aren’t going away.
- Nintendo isn’t looking at Sony and Microsoft for what the competition is doing, they are looking at apple. I think the future holds that handheld and living room gaming will combine into one seamless, interconnected, cloud based multi player gaming seamless masterpiece but we probably aren’t there yet.
- Biometric based gaming. Remember the vitality sensor? Yeah nothing really came from that with the current Wii to this point but a huge selling point of the Wii has been the healthy aspect of it, exercise and dance games sell at a fever pace. So I suspect Nintendo will take that further by using some form of biometric feedback in games. Envision games tracking and responding to heartrate, body temperature, I don’t think its even out of the realm to believe they can monitor brainwaves or eye movement in addition to motion controls but its going to take a non obtrusive technology to deliver on this (i.e. nobody wants to wear a getup of sensors on their head, chest, so on just to play).
- The next generation of Mii’s and Mii interactivity.
- New Mario, Zelda and Smash Bros games, why? Because they can.
- Continue catering to the casual gamer. Hate it all you want but Nintendo has never catered to the hard core gamer and they won’t change that here, if ever. Not that those games won’t be welcome on their system, but Nintendo is much more concerned about the “Nintendo Experience” then they are with shoveling out the same call of duty games from other systems. Its not good enough to say, yeah you can play that here too, they want to say yeah but you can only play it like this here.
- It won’t be called the Wii 2. Okay that’s just speculation on my part. The Wii name holds as much or more value than Nintendo at this point so its very likely that they won’t throw it away. But I don’t think Nintendo wants anyone to think that this next system is just a souped up Wii or wants to be grouped into the Sony camp for just adding a number after the system name. They have claimed time and again that they won’t release a new system until they have the opportunity to revolutionize gaming again. Sticking with the Wii name seems counter intuitive.
Time will tell what the future holds but the anticipation of new console unveiling is always exciting so buckle up and enjoy the rumor ride for the next few months.
