Sony Executive Believes Wii U Is Not Next Gen

Sony and Microsoft are not yet ready to officially announce their own consoles, even as Nintendo is getting ready to talk about a price point and a launch date for the Wii U.

The reason might be that the top leadership of the two companies does not see the device as being part of the actual-generation driven console space.

Shuhei Yoshida, who is the leader of the Sony Worldwide Studios, has told Eurogamer during an interview that, “Personally, I have always thought Wii was in a generation of its own. I always thought PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are in the same generation, but Wii was not the same.”

He added, “To me, the industry was growing really fast when those three platforms came up because the focus is so different. The PS3 and the 360 were the closest in terms of high definition and networked services. But Wii carved out a large niche to itself. To me, it was like two generations going at the same time.”

The Sony executive sees the Nintendo world so separated from that of the PlayStation and Xbox brands that he does not even consider the Wii U to be the first device of the next generation of gaming hardware.

This philosophy was suited to the current generation of gaming devices, when most of the titles that arrived on the PS3 and the Xbox 360 were not present on the Wii in any meaningful way and the ecosystem of titles was very different.

But for the Wii U Nintendo is emphasizing the fact that games like Assassin’s Creed III and Batman: Arkham City can be played with full graphics options, which means that there might be direct competition between the new hardware platform and the rumored PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720.

Announcements from both Microsoft and Sony are expected before the end of 2012.