[Update] Added the official statement from Nintendo (in Japanese and English) below. [End of Update]
According to a report on Kotaku today, Nintendo has confirmed the existence of the much-rumoured ‘Wii 2,’ or more accurately, ‘the next home console from Nintendo.’
In an official statement from the Japanese videogame giant, the company announced that this next console would indeed be released in 2012. More information, as well as a playable version of the console, will be available at this year’s Electronics Entertainment Expo, E3.
Rumours about the next Nintendo home console have been swirling for weeks as anonymous developers have slowly come forward to reveal snippets of new information on what are believed to be the machine’s features.
These features include better graphics and processing power than current generation consoles (the Xbox 360 has been named, in particular), as well as a 6-inch touchscreen built into a newly designed (traditional) controller, said to be used for increased and improved interaction with future games.
Taking the codename of the console into consideration, ‘Project Café,’ we might also be lead to believe that this next game machine from Nintendo will more fully incorporate social and connectivity technologies, including better use of internet access and other online features.
We’ll find out a lot more come June 7th when E3 kicks off in Los Angeles.
[Update]
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Source: Kotaku
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Comments:
does that mean it will or won't launch before march 2012? a playable version at e3 - woohoo!! this year's e3 is going to be epic. wish i could be there - ngp, wii 2, uncharted 3...
Nah, doesn't look like it'll release before March next year, based on the statement.
Will be very interesting to see the details at E3. It's pretty much been confirmed that Sony and MS don't want to release another console until around 2014, so Nintendo will have the "next gen" console market to itself for two years or so. That is, if the system is substantially more powerful than the X360 or PS3, maybe they're just playing catchup and keeping the price low. Like I said, E3 will be very interesting.
I'm still skeptical about whether Nintendo can win the "core" market back. My gut feel is another Nintendo console with some excellent first party titles and some lazy ports from a lot of the other major publishers.
We're going to see a lot of ports, for sure, including updated versions of games we're already playing in the current generation of consoles.
Iwata said pretty recently that Nintendo needs to focus more on third-party developer support, so hopefully these ports won't be 'lazy' and are in fact better than the original.
I don't think publishers and developers in particular will be upset if Sony and Microsoft let their consoles coast for another two years - there's so much investment in current technology that it'd be crazy to start a whole new cycle any time real soon, and if the next Nintendo console can be leveraged as another platform for current games (as opposed to different versions of an HD title), then publishers will be pretty happy with that situation.