Nintendo Not Talking about New Wii for Fear of Imitators

Microsoft is getting ready to launch Kinect in November, adding motion tracking to the Xbox 360. Sony is preparing to launch the Move with the same aim and will also introduce three dimensional gaming to the PlayStation 3. And watchers of the video game industry agree that Nintendo must be working on a new version of the Nintendo Wii that could introduce better motion tracking and High Definition capabilities.

Talking to investors as part of a Question & Answer session that came after the company posted a loss for the first quarter of the current fiscal year Satory Iwata, the president of Nintendo, has said, “Naturally, we are developing new products all the time. Whenever asked, our answer is yes, (we are making new products.) Our development departments are dedicated to developing new products. Once we release a product, we will soon move to the development of the next.”

He then went on to admit, “Speaking of other products, we are of course studying and developing the next console to Wii. However, there is a big difference between studying a product and announcing what it is and when we will release it.” It seems that Nintendo is very worried that if they talk about a new console with a huge new feature a long time before it actually comes out rivals like Sony and Microsoft might create something similar and limit the impact of Nintendo innovation.

The Nintendo 3DS is the newly announced handheld that the Japanese company is preparing to release in Japan at some point during this holiday season and in North America and in Europe in spring 2011. The launch will probably be the main focus for Nintendo in the next six to nine months so those who expect an announcement about a new Nintendo Wii should be prepared to wait at least until the summer of next year.