Blog Post: New Nintendo system....my thoughts

Well, today was the day for pretty big announcements from Nintendo that aren't exactly..... announcements. But these rumors, which sound more like fact than rumors, are still big. IGN reports, as have several other media outlets, that at E3 this year, we'll be witnessing a successor to the Wii; that this new console will be backwards compatible with all the Wii's games, will be significantly more powerful, and will allow for HD resolution. IGN is also hearing that this will be an attempt by Nintendo to win back the "hardcore gamer," which, well, we've heard many times before.

On one hand, I'm both excited for and a little concerned by this news. I seem to be one of the only "hardcore gamers" on the planet who still favors the Wii as my current gen system of choice, and so I always hoped that rumors about an "HD Wii"  system that I'd have to buy to continue Wii gaming were false, which, thankfully, they were. I love the Wii, I love the Motion Plus, I loved a lot of the more niche games that the Wii received that most people don't even seem to know about, and thanks to Super Smash Bros Brawl, I've played this system for more hours than I've probably ever played any other video game system. The next Wii, though, will not be arriving until late 2012, if what we're hearing now remains the case. Which still gives us time with the current Wii system, and hopefully time to still get games like Xenoblade and The Last Story localized, both of which I'm dying to play.

With it promised for late 2012, I'm actually okay with the Wii 2 releasing earlier than the competition will be releasing their systems. By late 2012, I feel, the Wii will have finally run its course. My concern lies with the question of...well, how powerful are they going to make this thing? Some speculate that it will be in the same ballpark as the PS3 and 360, which, to me, just won't cut it. The Wii 2 should be a next gen system, not a system playing catch up with the current gen. The potential is there for Nintendo to be the only next generation system out for years...neither Sony nor Microsoft has said to expect a new system from them for quite a long time, though it'll be interesting to see how this announcement will affect their plans. The question is, will they simply catch up to the PS3 and 360 and leave it at that? If so, they shouldn't even bother, they will need to make their system a large step up visually from PS3/360, which are 5-6 years old at this point! It's already being said that the system will support HD...well, that should have been a given, in this day and age.

My hopes for the Wii 2, or whatever this system will ultimately be called, are that it will be significantly more powerful than the 360 and PS3, that it will deliver a revolutionary control interface while still allowing for traditional control, that it will have a significantly better online play model than the Wii had, that it will come with a HDD, and that we'll see a more visible effort from Nintendo to provide hardcore-targeted games to its consumers.

I'm excited to hear more, hopefully soon, and I'll definitely share my thoughts as I hear them. :]