Square Enix head predicts new Wii in 2011, says motion 'impact' for Xbox, PlayStation will be 'small'

I can't wait. I'm still looking forwards to 2011.

A better question is, will the millions of casuals drooling over the wii, buying it, and then abandoning it into a closet actually care about HD at all?
My finger is on the "no" button.

And then: will the core gamers that got a wii only to be largely ignored by Nintendo still have enough faith on the brand to care by 2011? Again, my finger is on the "no" button.

As I said many times, Nintendo needs a crisis. Micorsoft had it after the release of the Xbox, and that forced them to step up their game to regain the lost ground. That raised their quality to the levels we have now.

Sony had it in the first two years of the PS3, and the result is the stellar line-up of games scheduled for the next few months.

Nintendo now needs a serious and radical failure of some kind to force them to raise their quality again, because as of now, it's seriously under the horizon.

This may be a bold claim but I'm votin that Majority of 'core gamers do not desire motion controls.

First to call it the WiiWii. You saw it here first.

Microsoft and Sony if by some divine intervention your reading this please for the love of everything that is holy don't get rid of traditional controllers!

if Nintendo does release a new console then i doubt that it'll be the same as the PS3/XBOX360. sure it'll probably have HD but besides that (the HD feature) and having great online (because i'd imagine Nintendo would have gotten their asses into gear and fixed their servers) i don't think their next console will be all hat similar. i mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Nintendo always said that if there were two or three lions going at it for a slab of meat that they would eventually kill each other? maybe not in those exact words but certainly something similar. as for this GEN (or at least until their next console launch) if Nintendo decides to cater to the "HARDCORE" audience with their next console then they have to do something to keep us (the "HARDORE" audience) interested and they have to it FAST! if not then i'm afraid their next console won't do as good as they hope.

Sorry, but law dictates I go where HD Zelda goes. If I had any choice, then I might drop Nintendo, but sorry, there isn't any choice in this.

water is wet

Considering the advancements of technology since the 360 was released, I'd imagine that a Wii2 would be the most powerful console (no more Gamecubes duct-taped together). It'd be just shameful if it wasn't.

Also, Nintendo doesn't need to design a console around a new method of control and truly, I don't think it'd pay off to do so. Voice control? Done (although not well). Waggle control? Done. Wave your arms like a madman control? Done. I mean what more could they do besides adding touch control to the new controller, in which case they could just create a Wii2/DSi connection.

There isn't so much that I'd imagine Nintendo could do in terms of controller innovation that isn't already on the market in some form on another.

SquareEnix... really? And people are actually listening to them?
I don't have enough fingers to count the times they've disappointed me.

no. it'll be nintendo nexus.

Ridiculous!
You are talking like only "casual" gamers own and play the Wii.
I'm as hardcore as they come and the Wii is my main console of choice.

But hey, every lame attempt to bash Nintendo is valuable here cause Nintendo is #1 in sale.

And sales are in decline for ALL SYSTEMS, not just the Wii!
The Wii is still selling more then the X360 and PS3.
Get your fact straight.

And its sad that most of you probably spend too much time complaining and not actually enjoying video games which were made to HAVE FUN!!!

All you needed to read was "pwn" and "is a fail" to see that this person is too stupid to have knowledge of proper grammar, which means he is also probably also too stupid to have an opinion that matters.

I predict that the new Wii won’t actually do high definition, but will instead offer a new standard known as “slightly less low definition.” The new controller will also only have only 1 large button, and it has its own little screen that constantly displays calming images. Nintendo will also introduce a new “region lockout region lockout” system that locks each Wii to a small 12 mile radius around the consumer, thereby preventing them from playing any games outside of that region. When asked why they are doing this, Mr. Iwata will say “It is more intuitive for the players.”

You also will have no way to transfer any of your virtual console/wiiware games to this new system without buying them again, and when asked about this Mr. Iwata will say it “Offers a better and more intuitive value for both core gamers and new gamers who may have been bashed in the head with a piece of rotting plywood.”

It "May" have a small impact. Who knows maybe it will be a big impact.

Wow... Someone in the game industy who doesn't have their head up their ass and actually says some things that make sense? Will wonders never cease?

I'm pretty surprised, I thought a lot of you would be horrified to hear about a new HD-Wii coming along so soon that will obsolete the current version - the current Wii design considered HD as 'unnecessary', so this is quite a shift. For recent customers to hear of a new version only two years from now, might leave them thinking they bought a lemon, and prospective customers might even hold-off; seems like a comment that might damage future Nintendo game/HW sales to me, not improve it - surprised to hear Square Enix leaking such news.

For me, I wouldn't buy a new version, I wish I'd known back then that I'd only come back to play the Dreamcube version of MGS2: Twin Snakes; Wii was a bad choice for me, I thought it would have a much wider array of titles I'd like. I got a bigger kick out of the hype and anticipation, than I did actually playing the games :/

I think the big deciding factor and the other console's motion controllers are how they implement them.

The problem with these acessories is that they are just that, acessories. Wii made their motion control an integral part of the game, for almost every game, and put it in with the purchase of the console.

If xbox and sony want a stab at the market, they'll have to do the same thing...make sure everyone has the controller and that it's implemented from the get go.

"Wada also believes that the three platforms will start looking more like each other by the year 2011, when he believes Nintendo will release the fabled successor of the Wii. The system will add features found on the PS3/360, and may also introduce a brand new controller. It'll certainly be interesting to see what moves consumers when an HD Nintendo system exists concurrently with motion-enabled Microsoft and Sony systems."

This is absolutely ridiculous. The market doesn't care about High-Def graphics. The market doesn't care about High-Def, period. If they did then the PS3 wouldn't have needed a 50% price cut to stimulate movement for their console. As someone who owns a PS2, Wii, DS and PSP, I don't about High-Def, either. I care about gameplay and content, something that a developer can create on any console, if they're good enough to roll their sleeves up and do it.

As for third parties. It would seem the reaction from developers to the Wii is to fall on the ground and cry like babies because they're just absolutely cowed by the notion that games can be simple, straightforward, easy-to-pick up and hard to master, and still be FUN without all the stupid High-Def bells and whistles. Maybe if these morons actually made games for EVERYONE on that system--timeless classics on parity with Mario Bros. or Sonic, or Mega Man that everyone could enjoy--instead of crying like a bunch of emos that the Wii's audience "doesn't understand them," they'd be more successful on the platform.

My first console was an Atari 2600. One of the games I had for that platform was M.A.S.H. There were two parts to that game. The first part had you flying a helicopter to rescue wounded soldiers, and then the second part had you operate on them to remove bullets from their body, not unlike that game Operation, where if you touch the edges the guy's nose would light up. And lo and behold, roughly 20 years later I'm playing Trauma Center on the Wii, and instead of using a joystick, I'm pointing at stuff with the Wiimote and making incisions, injecting syringes, giving heart massages, removing shrapnel, sewing people up, and even aligning fractured bones, all with just simple hand gestures.

Why is this kind of straightforward simplicity so hard for game developers to understand these days? My mother played Pac Man, and Mario Bros., and Vegas Stakes, and she has never had any interest in gaming until the Wii came out with its return to arcade-style simplicity and gameplay. Many of the people the Wii appeals to are people who remember the NES and 2600 as their last gaming console. A lot of these people don't want "casual" games, but classics that they can pop in and play for short bursts and get some entertainment value out of.

Why can't developers do this? They can't, because they make games for themselves, or for the core gaming market, and then wonder why their games don't sell on the Wii. No, they don't just wonder, they have the audacity to blame the CUSTOMER for THEIR failures. These clowns are in the ENTERTAINMENT business. If they can't make games that can entertain everyone, then they're in the wrong line of work. A game doesn't have to be dumbed down to be enjoyable and accessible, and the expanded market knows this. The third parties don't take their Wii games seriously and think they can sell their regardless of quality, but they're finding out that the expanded market isn't a bunch of easily-fleeced sheep like they first thought, and it's upsetting them.

At least Capcom has done well to break from the norm and done their best to embrace the Wii, both with making games that cater to the motion controls, and games that offer the arcade-like simplicity that appeals to the Wii's audience. They're at least trying, which is a heck of a lot more than I can say for most of the game industry.

Dude MAY have a point. It seems like most of the Wii purchasers were casual gamers or people looking to get their children a gaming console and the Wii looked the safest and all the hoopla added to that. These people WON'T be jumping up to a PS3 or 360 hence they will not be moved by the motion tech since they already have a Wii "that can do that", so they would think.

PS3s and 360s are too intimidating for casual gamers and parents who bought their kids a Wii most likely will not upgrade unless they just spoil their kids...which could just be a lot, now that I think of it.

Now, as for core gamers, motion controls could catch on. People talk a lot of yak about things until they get it in their grubby little hands. When that happens, it becomes the greatest thing since Arid Extra dry or sumthin' to them then word of mouth spreads to other core gamers and, BAAAAAMMMM, it's a phenomenon.

Or it could be an, as the yungins like to say these days, "EPIC FAIL!!!!"

Personally, I look forward to this tech in my PS3. I thought Nintendo was stupid in making motion controls their primary control system AND having ridiculously inferior graphics. Now that will be rectified AND improved on by Sony (and MS) I am highly interested as to what innovative games can come of this. I'll start with EyePet.

Hi, stopped posting on here for awhile b/c the pompous ("I have a gift for knowing if a game will be good") claims and incessant Nintendo-bashing attitude of tmacairjordan - which continued even after his ridiculous "project" that he tortuously tested on an unknowing Jostiq community supposedly came to an end.

What's interesting about this is Wada can be gleamed from what Wada actually said in the Financial Times (if you read the source) even though he doesn't make bold conclusions.:

1.) Referring to Natal, “As a user interface it’s fantastic and I think it will become standard,” [and] Their immediate effect on the console market might turn out to be greater if compelling games are released. However, games that use motion control are quite difficult to design and “Present game machines already have a lot of functions: they are a network terminal, a Blu-ray or DVD player, and a gaming machine. 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,”

2.) He expects Nintendo "to release a new Wii by 2011, with functionality more like that of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 or Sony’s PlayStation 3, and possibly a different controller."

3.) Finally "Wada said the recession was having only a limited effect on game sales, mainly through its impact on distributors. US game sales were down 16 % on a year ago in August... He attributed most of the industry’s slowdown to weaker sales of Nintendo games so far this year. In contrast to last year, Nintendo has not released many of its big titles in the first half of 2009. Square Enix, by contrast, is having a strong year. Its Dragon Quest 9, for Nintendo’s DSi handheld console, has sold almost 4m copies in Japan since its release in July. It has also had a hit with Batman: Arkham Asylum."

I find this interesting b/c:

A) As much as he's impressed by MS/Sony motion controllers, he doesn't seem to expect them to replace traditional gampely (maybe co-exist w/ it, as is the case on the Wii now).

B) He still seems to think that Nintendo is calling a lot of the shots (which if your a fan of Squuenix games, is relevant). Basically he attributes this to them not releasing big games, during the troubled finances of FY09, but he has faith that on the horizon, Nintendo has big titles, perhaps an HD console in 2 years, w/ added functionality ala PS3/360, and even a new controller. This looks is not doom and gloom, but rather a chance for an upswing in Wii(/HD) sales in the future, where he seems to think that these things will make more of an impact for Nintendo as oppossed to the smaller impact the new PS360 motion controls may make.

Cool to see new numbers on DQ9 -- it's at 4 million! Between Wada's comments, DQ9 sales, the DQX being announced for Wii, Famitsu's recent sales forecast of FF13 only moving 1-1.5 million (must be JPN-only figures, but still!), and the rumored push for the new Wii Final Fantasy: Crytal Bearers on the TGS showfloor and this Holiday season, it looks like Squeenix bay be looking to putting more of it's big franchises on the Wii(/HD) in the coming years.

On another note, though I think Chris D. generally makes good points, as Anita Frasier just announced w/ the latest NPD reports, the Wii is still selling at the Rate the PS2 did at this point in it's lifetime. It's really not doom and gloom for the Wii. As we saw w/ the Gamecube, grabbing the "hardcore gamers" fist and then going for the "casuals" simply wouldn't have worked this time around.

Whether we all liked it or not, Nintendo chose the best strategy for its sales, and IMO has released just as many good games on the Wii as it did in this point in the GCNs life. Though people will forever debate Wind Waker vs. Twilight Princess whether Brawl is a worthy successor to Melee, IMO a lot of the Nintendo's Wii entries are better then the previous title in their respective series (I.e. Galaxy > Sunshine, MP3 > MP2, Mario Kart Wii > Double Dash, BW2 > BW, WarioWare Smooth Moves >WarioWare Mega Party Game$, Wario Land: Shake Dimmension > Wario World, New Play Control DK JB, Pikmin, Metroids > GCN versions, etc.)

Plus, we've gotten a few new IPs (Endlesss Ocean, Disaster, Art Style series, Wii Fit, Wii Sports/Resort and the Motion Plus, and the upcoming-- Monado, Span Smasher, Dynamic Slash, and Line Attack Heroes, etc.) as well as quality updates to classic series that hadn't seen traditional entries in years (i.e. Punch Out and Excite Truck/Bots and the upcoming Sin & Punishment 2, and Metroid: Other M.)

Finally, to address the slow year Nintendo has had and it's upcoming Holiday, as was as Chris folks' doubts about it's ability to sell in the coming months don't forget that the following will ensure Wii sales:

1.) Price Drop to $200, Black Wii, Classic Controller Pro, Motion Plus will all help stimulate hardware sales.

2.) New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Galaxy has sold 8 million, NSMB DS has sold 18-20m)

3.) Wii Fit Plus (Wii Fit has sold 20-22m)

4.) Mario & Sonic at the Winter Oympics (yes, Sega publishing in the US, but Nintendo Publishes in JPN, and you can believe they rake in dough on this one; M&S has sold 7m)

5.) Continued evergreen title sales (Wii Sports Resort, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Play, hell even LoZ TP, MP8, and AC are still moving at or near $50)

So while blogs may emphasize Nintendo's sales slide, this Fall they've got a price cut and sequels to some of the the biggest sellers of this or any gen (Sports, Fit, NSMB, Mario & Sonic).

If the release a new Wii, it will be meant with silence on my part. They will not trick me again as they did before by releasing Metriod Prime 3, knowing I couldn't resist, and then getting crap ever since.

I believe there will be a Wii-HD. It would basically be an updated version of the original (like the DSi).

It would upscale existing games.

Newer games will have special features that will work on the HD version. The newer will still be able to play on the old Wii as well.

I'm siked for the new consoles,
I love that immensely difficult choice you make while the console is in production

360 ... ps3 ... wii

I can honestly say no matter which of these systems I pick up I'd always have some regret for some game that comes on the other console .. but that is what makes console picking fun ^_^.