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It's Official: Wii 2 in the Works

Today shall be remembered as the happiest day for casual gamers

Jul 31, 2008 08:04 GMT  ·  By
How will the new console look like?
   How will the new console look like?

Current-gen consoles are still years away from becoming "last-gen" according to analysts and sales figures, but this does not necessarily mean that work on the next-gen devices hasn't started yet. Although manufacturers usually love secrets and tend to deny everything until the last minute, it seems that Nintendo has a different strategy, since the company's president, Satoru Iwata, has just dropped a bomb: Nintendo Wii 2 (yes, the successor of the Wii) is in the works!

Speaking with Forbes, Iwata said, "We are always preparing for the next hardware. We are under development. But the hardware is a kind of box that consumers reluctantly buy in order to play our games".

That is an interesting point of view and it's really something worth hearing from a console manufacturer president: games sell, not the console itself, which is completely true - check the PlayStation 3, for example. It is considered the most powerful gaming device on the market at the moment, but its sales are much lower. And that happens because it has far less games than its rivals. The Nintendo Wii, on the other hand, even though it is considered a casual console for kids, has tons of titles and great sales. Which means hat Iwata is right: consoles without titles developed specifically for them are worthless.

"Every hardware needs some revolutionary features," Iwata explained. "This time around, it happened to be we had a revolutionary user interface. Will it be the same for the next generation? I really can't tell."

Hopefully, this statement shouldn't be translated into "The Wii 2 will be just a bit improved Wii". We wouldn't like that - we demand innovation from Nintendo, new means of controlling games (such as brain-technology or Star-Trek like holograms) and, just this time, a bit more in-game realism. I love Miis, but the idea of playing a Mii-GTA V scares me. However, it seems that there's still a while to wait until the Wii 2 gets launched: the current console from Nintendo still records great sales and the company has no reasons to release a new one.