14 DAY TRIAL // During an August statement Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated quite clearly that the company was not ready to release a second version of its most popular product, the Wii console. He said that it wouldn't "happen any time in the near future" so the competition is making a move to undermine Nintendo's success. With the release of the $299 PlayStation 3 Slim and Microsoft's Arcade/Elite Strategy offering prices of $199 and $299, the Wii won't be able to stand up to the technologically superior foes. Even if it reaches the $200 mark, as unconfirmed rumors would have it, Nintendo's console will still have unstable footing on the market.
But the company is most likely aware of the uncertain situation and the “near future” statement might be a diversion. In a statement released to the Financial Times over the weekend, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada said that he would expect some improvement in the Wii line of development by 2011. This update is believed to bring the Wii to the standard of technology imposed by the PS3 and the Xbox 360. Wada believes that a new controller from Nintendo is also a possibility.
He also discussed the versatility and of the present consoles. "Present game machines already have a lot of functions: They are a network terminal, a Blu-ray or DVD player, and a gaming machine." he said. "Compared to these three pillars, the [new motion] controllers are quite limited, so the impact may be small. They are an extension of the gaming function." But just as with the Project Natal, which he believes that, “as a user interface, it's fantastic, and I think it will become standard” the success of motion controllers will depend a lot on software implementation, as games that make use of this technology are difficult to produce and very costly, and thus few in number.
Showcased at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony's EyeToy-complementing motion controller is due to hit the market in 2010, just as Project Natal is expected to do, even if it doesn't have yet an official release date. With this in mind, Nintendo releasing a “Wii 2” and a new controller seems to be a must for the console to survive.