Karl Castaneda: The more I think about the rumors dropping yesterday, with Game Informer citing "multiple confirmed sources," the more I think it just sounds like non-news. I mean, of course Nintendo's going to unveil the Wii's successor at E3 this year. I just think everyone is extrapolating their own definition of "unveil."
Nintendo technically "unveiled" the Wii, then called "Revolution," at E3 2005. Sure, it wasn't much of an unveiling, considering Satoru Iwata basically got up on stage, held up an empty box and showed off some really obviously-pre-rendered footage of Metroid Prime 3. They didn't show off near-final hardware or any actual games until the Tokyo Game Show in September, months later. I think we're in for a similar showing this year.
I fully expect the Wii HD / Super Wii / etc. to be on stage this year at E3 - I just don't expect something on the scale of E3 2006.
Moving on to the other bit of "news," we've got this estimation of hardware power (this is always my favorite part), with claims that this new Wii is even more powerful than the Xbox 360 or PS3. Well, it damn well better be. Here we are, six years after the launch of the 360 - those parts should be cheap enough to mass-assemble. The issue of "cost" really has nothing to do with the price-tag on the console - it's the cost of development.
As recently as GDC earlier this year, Satoru Iwata has continually brought up the importance of keeping development costs low, and how the new era of HD gaming has brought budgets into seven, and even eight figures. But one of the biggest contributors to this is in needing to create high-definition assets. The Wii's been able to skirt around this by only outputting at 480p, but its successor simply can't afford that luxury.
So what's Nintendo going to do? Bite the bullet and become a part of the "problem" they've so-often relayed to the public, or do they have something else in mind?
Honestly, I've got no clue, but I'll be watching that E3 press conference intently.
Zach Miller: Everybody needs to stop for a second. While we can pretty much guarantee that Nintendo will show off the Wii Squared at E3 this year, some of the reports coming out of Kotaku, Game Informer, and others are a little too pie-in-the-sky to be believable. I find it incredibly hard to believe, for example, that Nintendo has crafted a system that's not just on-par with, but better, than the Xbox 360 and PS3 in terms of hardware specs. That just ain't Nintendo.
While I think it would be nice if Nintendo got back in the hardware game, they've been extremely reluctant to do so. The 3DS is the biggest step forward for them in years, and even it consists of baby steps away from the Wii (only one friend code? Hold me.). As has often been said (and lamented) here at Nintendo World Report, Nintendo does what's best for Nintendo, usually from a monetary perspective. Nintendo's not going to sit idly by and bleed cash for years until some expensive console starts turning a profit.
The next system will be cheap to produce (the 3DS costs something like $100 to make), relatively cheap for the consumer by comparison to the competition, and have some proprietary bullshit gimmick that entices the faithful and continues to court newcomers. They'd be idiots to drop the Wii brand, and they know it.
Michael "TYP" Cole: I don't really care what's in the Wii successor hardware-wise as long as Nintendo releases several good games on a semi-regular basis. They ran hot-and-cold on Wii, which is why people started forgetting about the system. They really can't let that happen again. HD graphics, the specifics of the controller...that is all secondary.
With regards to online capabilities, if it has what the 3DS has, and I'm sure it will, that's good enough for me. Some sort of integrated OS mechanism or standardized middleware for patching games would be nice. And, of course, I'd like to see the Virtual Console live on.