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Rumor: Wii successor to be announced at E3
by Steve Watts, Apr 14, 2011 2:30pm PDTRumors of a new Nintendo console have been circulating for years, and they're at it again, this time from Game Informer. Multiple sources at GI claim that the company is preparing to reveal its next console at E3 this year, if not before that.
Citing multiple anonymous sources, the report claims that the new console will run in HD resolutions, but it's unconfirmed how the hardware power will compare to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The HD output is said to be a move towards courting third-party developers, though, and the company is said to be showing publishers the system to garner support for a strong 2012 launch.
Contrary to rumors of an upgraded Wii, though, it seems that the sources claim this console will be more of a fresh start. "Nintendo is doing this one right. [It's] not a gimmick like the Wii," said one anonymous source.
Whether the Wii was a gimmick didn't seem to hurt its worldwide sales. Though the console has been losing steam over the last few months, its strong start and sustained success still place it as the top-selling current console. If Nintendo's next effort is more similar to its competitors, it may not have the same breakout success.
Meanwhile, IGN sources claim the console will be significantly more powerful than the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, capable of 1080p output, and backwards compatible with Wii software.
Some of these details echo a prediction from way back in 2008, in which industry veteran John Davison claimed a "Wii HD" would launch by 2011. If this rumor proves true, we'll give him partial credit for only being off by a year.
The timing is interesting, as just yesterday we reported on a rumor of a Wii price drop. We speculated that if true, it could be laying the groundwork for a new console announcement, and now this rumor is stating just that. We probably won't know for certain on the veracity of either rumor until mid-May at the earliest.
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True Wii HD-> Just as the Wii was GC-hardware overclocked and dieshrunk, Wii HD will have Wii/GC-hardware further overclocked and dieshrunk with a new sensor/possibly a camera to enable higher precision than is currently possible with the Wii. This guarantees b/c through Gamecube, smaller sizes, and GC-level hardware that is upgraded to make 1080p the baseline. If so, disappointing to show up now after all these years.
Wii successor-> ARM-based CPU+Tegra 3-level/SGX/AMD custom GPU. CPU is faster than the Wii, fast enough to make up for any b/c hiccups, but GC b/c goes out the window. Fine by me. AMD GPU guarantees most incompatibilities are already taken care of there. This enables them to jump right over 360 and PS3 into superior performance. That is, until MS and Sony announce their own updated consoles not long after that are superior in every way.
If Nintendo continues to price their hardware where they make money off each unit sold, then they have nothing to lose and everything to gain from moving into the next generation. Sony and Microsoft have everything to lose. Right now, they're both (finally) making money off of each unit sold, even if Sony's profit is far less. MS has Kinect helping counterbalance any losses by them making virtually twice as much on the device as it costs to build, minus R&D and marketing. Sony has Move, but Move isn't in demand like Kinect. Sony's cost to build is almost certainly greater by now than MS, though MS has/had the pesky 3 year warranty extension because of RROD, estimated at 1 billion (probably conservative?).
So while Sony lost a lot of money selling their PS3's below cost (at times well below cost) in the beginning, MS lost a lot of money replacing a ton of 360's due to failures. Both would love it if this generation went on another two years to help recoup those "start up costs." Nintendo, OTOH, lost no money at the start and assuming they lose no money on selling these new units, can easily move into the next generation, especially if the software for the Wii is b/c for the immediate future.
This strategy, however, would lead to them knocking the price of the Wii down to $150-ish (already rumored) and putting out a higher end piece of tech for more, giving consumers an option between SD for $150 and HD for $250-300. This is what Sony did with the PS1 when the PS2 showed up and the PS2 when the PS3 showed up. It worked extremely well from PS1 to PS2, but seemed to slow PS3 uptake when the PS3 showed up at $600 MSRP.
I imagine Nintendo won't price their new console at $600.
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