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Nintendo Wii Games

Wii 2 Unlikely For 2011, Maybe In 2012 303

Posted by Soulskill from the still-a-few-more-old-franchises-to-resurrect dept.
An anonymous reader writes "As discussed on Slashdot earlier this year, the lack of a next-generation Wii may be hurting Nintendo. That doesn't seem to concern the company's US chief, Reggie Fils-Aime, who said this week that a Wii 2 might not appear until 2012. He wants to sell a few million more consoles before a successor is launched. So, no Wii 2 for 2010 or 2011 — meanwhile, the PS3 and Xbox consoles get motion control support and other content enhancements. What does that mean for the success of Nintendo's gaming console business? Has the innovator been out-innovated due to a sluggish product roadmap?"
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Wii 2 Unlikely For 2011, Maybe In 2012 More

Wii 2 Unlikely For 2011, Maybe In 2012

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  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 19, 2010 @07:31AM (#34280316)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Dead economy (Score:4, Funny)

      by Seriousity ( 1441391 ) <Seriousity.live@com> on Friday November 19, 2010 @08:05AM (#34280520)
      Ya, at this rate it won't be released until Dec 20. 2012, and we'll only get one day to play it.

      But that, my brother, will be one glorious day.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suv4x4 ( 956391 )

      means no new consoles. Duh. When things pick up THEN I'd expect a new console.

      I suspect they have also more up their sleeves than just 'better motion controllers' and 'better resolution'.
      If it was just "Wii2" it would be out by now.

      • I would like to see 3d gaming, i.e. game console support for the 3d displays all the major LCD manufacturers are coming out with. By 2012 3d might be a more-or-less standard feature in new TVs.

        Yeah, I know most of slashdot hates 3d TV, doesn't think graphics matter in games, etc, etc.. but c'mon, gaming is the perfect application, because you actually DO have a 3d representation of the world that supports selecting your own viewpoint. For certain types of games such as car driving games, I think 3d coul

  • Understandable (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Friday November 19, 2010 @07:36AM (#34280334) Homepage

    The Wii only started losing steam this past year, and they still sell boatloads of them every month. Granted, it's a much smaller boat than it was before, but they are still moving units. Even though the current generation of consoles are starting to directly impact [livingwithanerd.com] the potential complexity of games, they still have a bit of life left in them...Wii included. Here's to hoping that Nintendo focuses more on the hardware this time. Don't get me wrong, there have been some amazing games released for the Wii (Muramasa: The Demon Blade being one of the better ones), but I'd like to see more emphasis on gaming prowess rather than a focus on the "general" market.

    Not that I expect that to happen; Nintendo is a business, after all...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )

      But you can now buy them in COLORS!!!!!!!

      My old nasty White wii is going to be replaced with a REd wii...

      Oh buy all new red controllers, and new accessories to match!

  • That's what they really meant to say. Or actually, "I know the Wii was interesting but now out-of-date, but don't lose your loyalty to Nintendo."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pojut ( 1027544 )

      All of the consoles are out of date, from a hardware perspective...each new multiplatform game that gets released just makes the console-PC divide more stark.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

        It's the nature of the console market to be outdated the day they are released.
        They require parts that are relatively reliable and mass-produced and need a stable hardware spec well before the release date.
        OTOH, when I buy a game for X360, I'm pretty sure it'll work without problems on my X360. Not so much of a certainty when buying a PC game.

  • I suspect he may be misleading the public (Score:5, Informative)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@nOSpam.keirstead.org> on Friday November 19, 2010 @07:45AM (#34280384)

    Nintendo has been raking in a metric buttload of cash off of the Wii.

    Remember the fact that the Wii *hardware* made a profit from day 1, while the PS3 and the 360 sold at a loss for many many years.

    What have they been doing with all that cash? R&D of course. Do you actually think Nintendo is just sitting around on their hands? They are not stupid.

    In all likelihood they are just laughing their butts off at Sony and Microsoft pushing over themselves playing catch-up, meanwhile sitting on some revolutionary new console that will be surprise announced in the summer to come out next Xmas.

    • They already surprise-announced a revolutionary new console*, it's the 3DS. They won't want to split their marketing efforts between two new machines at once. The Wii's more likely to be in line for a soft relaunch with a lot of Motionplus titles and a big push on online support, not a replacement.

      *For sufficiently small values of revolutionary.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by __aatirs3925 ( 1805148 )
      What was it? The R&D department for the Wii was about 5-7 people and their system was based off old technology slapped on a Gamecube. I'm not dismissing the success of the Wii, but perhaps their R&D is not for hardware, but for marketing. The casual gamer is a goldmine, that's what makes Nintendo so successful.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Pojut ( 1027544 )

        I was under the impression that their reasons for sticking with the older hardware had nothing to do with keeping the price down, but rather a way to keep things more familiar for developers. Since they were going to have to be learning an entirely new control scheme, Nintendo didn't want devs to have to deal with complex new hardware as well ("hardware" independent of the control mechanisms, obviously.) Now that developers (kind of) have a handle on the motion controls, Nintendo can give them more powerf

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by alen ( 225700 )

          i'm sure that money and the prospect of massive bonuses had nothing to do with it. the execs are like starfleet officers, everything is done for the good of the federation

          • Re:I suspect he may be misleading the public (Score:5, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19, 2010 @09:17AM (#34281096)

            I can't tell if you are serious or sarcastic, but for the record:

            Iwata makes $770K ($2.1M with possible bonuses). Miyamoto earns under $700K ($1.4M with possible bonuses). The other 4 top guys earn around $500K ($1.2M to $1.6M with bonuses). Those incomes are tiny, both when compared to other companies in their industry, and considering the billions in profit the company makes ($2.43 billion last year, $2.99 billion the year before, and those are actual profits, not just revenue).

          • Actually, a bad dev kit can just about kill a platform in the absence of any other problems with the console. If you're not mindful about what registers to include and how well the dev kit works, you can easily stall yourself out of the critical period around launch.

          • A cheap and familiar Wii is both good for Nintendo and good for developers

            A cheap Wii with a very similar-to-the-Gamecube development kit means profits for Nintendo in development and manufacturing, and it means cheap and fast development process for Wii developers. If developers have a console to experiment on (thanks to low cost), they try new things and make lots of Wii games. This not only makes Nintendo money from the games produced, but makes both Nintendo and the companies money from the increased au

  • Has the innovator been out-innovated due to a sluggish product roadmap?

    Erm, that depends. If "out-innovated" means "finally caught up to with motion-control designs" (albeit ones that either look stupid or probably require much bigger rooms, like the PS2 EyeToy used to) then yes. If "out-innovated" keeps its old definition of "now have a smaller share of original features that they implemented first and are seen as lacking because of it" then I wouldn't be so sure.

  • wii 2? (Score:2, Funny)

    by mug funky ( 910186 )

    nintendo should go roman and call it the wiiii

  • I don't expect Nintendo to recover.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Friday November 19, 2010 @07:52AM (#34280432) Journal

    Unless they can come up with something very new, and very original, and something that's a lot better than just an incremental improvement to their current system, I don't think they are going to be a serious competitor in the industry after the next generation of consoles has run its course.

    What makes it even worse is that Nintendo is probably going to have to depend heavily on backward compatibility in their next generation console, which limits the directions they can take with it.

    This, I think, is it for them. I think they might be down and out for the count.

    I remember when Atari was king of the consoles with the 2600... but they didn't innovate quickly enough as competitors came out either.

  • ... another rumor of Nintendo's impending collapse. Just because the two main competitors - neither of whom have matched the Wii sales numbers with their latest consoles - have released motion controls, is not enough to claim that Nintendo will be gone next week. Neither the PS3 nor the XBox 360 controls have been out long enough to have any sense of how often they will be implemented in upcoming games.

  • Limited markets... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Friday November 19, 2010 @07:58AM (#34280474)
    Right now the Kinect is $200 and the PS3 Motion is $100 plus $70/controller according to Amazon. So just to add motion control to the 360, you have to shell out what you would for a new Wii. You can get a Wii used from Gamestop with a decent warranty for $120. And browsing the Kinect games, they look like the same stuff available on the Wii: some Sonic knock-offs, the EA exercise stuff, Deca Sports... Unless the Kinect and Motion can put out some must-have titles, people who don't already own a 360 or PS3 will likely opt for the Wii.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      My Wii sits unused (hardy har har) while I occasionally use my 360. The Wii turned out to be a gimmick. Odds are Kinect will be the same, and it will sell few games, and we'll be over motion detection for another couple generations.

      I keep hoping someone will come up with a cheap eyetap so we can get into reality overlay gaming. I want more motivation to go outside. I'm imagining some kind of multiplayer wizard battle game, that's something you could meaningfully do without endangering people.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by D Ninja ( 825055 )

        I wouldn't say Wii turned out to be a gimmick - it just meets different needs than a 360, for example. The 360 has better games...there is no doubt about that...but it has better games for a specific audience. You wouldn't find my grandmother playing Call of Duty or anything like that, but sit her down and play Mario Party 8, and she has a blast. Just because Wii doesn't fit *your* particular demographic doesn't mean it's a gimmick. (In fact, quite the opposite - the fact that 360 and PS3 are trying to copy

      • Was it a gimmick? If you've got a 360, the odds are fairly good that you're not the core demographic driving the wii sales. The biggest problem that the Wii has is the space requirement, and I think Sony is the only one of the three that's apparently dealt with that. MS seeming to think that we all have living rooms the size of a high school gym.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by WankersRevenge ( 452399 )

      Kinnect is a $150 ... not the two hundred as you claim. And you can always pick one up used from ebay if you like. And I'm guessing the majority of Kinnect purchasers already own the XBox. That said, having recently played the Kinnect I will say that I was underwhelmed. I found the lag to be bothersome and the games I played were forgettable. The voice navigation just sucked often requiring us to pick up the controller to actually do what we wanted to do. I will say it was a blast watching the kids p

    • Re:Limited markets... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cbope ( 130292 ) on Friday November 19, 2010 @08:51AM (#34280880)

      Exactly. I'd say it's more of a case of the competitors closing a gap on the Wii, while the Wii is still significantly cheaper than either.

      Plus you have to consider that since every single Wii ever sold has motion control out of the box, every single game can be developed with motion control as a standard feature. For the PS3 and Xbox... developers have to consider developing games for consoles that may or MAY NOT have motion control capabilities. Remember folks, this is an EXTRA COST option on PS3 and Xbox... it means you can't take it for granted that motion control is available. As a developer you have to support both non-motion control and motion control controller interfaces for your games on those platforms.

      From a dev point of view I'd much rather develop for the Wii than to have to take this into account. For the Xbox and PS3, the early adopters have already bought the "upgrades"... where does the growth then come from now that the honeymoon is over? I'd be interested to see the installed-base numbers of consoles vs. motion control devices sold separately. Probably not a pretty picture.

  • Nintendo is catching up (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Drakkenmensch ( 1255800 ) on Friday November 19, 2010 @08:02AM (#34280500)
    The Wii's game catalogue will look a whole lot better now that both the 360 and PS3 have their very own shovelware minigame motion system platform to lower the overall quality of their software releases.

  • It isn't just innovation but value for money too

    Here in the UK the Wii is poor value for money.

    There is a small selection of games (compared to PS3 & xbox 360) and generally poorer quality than other console versions. Also it appears less Wii games make it to budget then other consoles too.

    We own a Wii and only my son plays it now because the only decent games for it are the LEGO series.

    Expensive controllers too:
    PS3 motion controller = £30
    Wii motionplus & wiimote = £50

    I've gone back to p

  • Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Friday November 19, 2010 @08:18AM (#34280608) Homepage

    Nintendo has been in business for a lot longer than almost any company you can name (1889!) and have seen off some enormous rivals several times (Sega, Atari, etc.).

    Nintendo make profit on almost everything they release.

    Nintendo make big releases every now and again, stringing them on with life support in the form of games that turn out to become famous in their own right.

    When Nintendo do plop down a new console it's invariably innovative and top-of-its-game (not necessarily the best hardware, but definitely better in gaming terms).

    Nintendo is an inventor. They toil away in their little sheds for years in complete secrecy until one day they walk out, plop something into a business person's hands and blow everyone away. Then while the market are still reeling from that, they just wander quietly back into their shed and aren't seen for another few years when they rinse and repeat.

    Precisely BECAUSE they aren't saying "Oh, no, our competitors have something new, we have to copy it in our own way and get back into the game" is why they are able to do what they do. They don't really care about Kinect, or anything else - they have money enough to last a decade, and that gives them a decade to make something even more spectacular without having to worry about the day-to-day running of the businesses. Wiis are still being sold but they have enough to go back into their shed and devote the next few years to R&D and playtesting which the other rivals *cannot*. They will have their own ideas, which might work (Wii) or might flop (VirtualBoy) but will be away from the conventional elements of the time that are competing in the market. And when they deliver their next invention, people will give them millions and, because of using their brains and not just throwing expensive hardware at a problem, they will invariably make profit on every unit sold.

    It's also true that they decide what they want in the next, say, Mario game. They decide what they want to be able to do. Then they build a console around that, not the other way around.

    You can try to make Nintendo look foolish and show how "you know better" if you want, but invariably you will end up with egg on your face. Nintendo know their market better than anyone - they almost single-handedly invented it. Leave them be. The "Wii 2" (which it will almost certainly NEVER be named) will be to the Wii what the Wii was to the Gamecube, or the Gamecube to the N64, or the N64 to the SNES, or the SNES to the NES, or the equivalent trail in the handheld markets. It will take years to arrive - you'll have just about forgotten about your Wii and Nintendo will be absent from the market for a year or so - and then it'll blow your socks off. After a few months people will complain that it doesn't do X or Y or that it's "outdated" or "underpowered" while Nintendo will have another decade's research money under their belt and be working on the next one.

    Nintendo know what they are doing. Sod Wii 2. I want whatever the next stage is - which will be more advanced gameplay-wise than anything on the market in the next few years.

  • It's still the best selling console of 2010 worldwide. Last week put it between the xbox 360 and PS3 in sales. I'd love to be failing this well. Yes, we know it lacks power and the oomph of the motion controller is not that big anymore. But there's no xbox 720, PS4 or whatever announced yet either. Nintendo don't want to show their hand so early that Microsoft and Sony can copy it for their launches. Either they have to wait for another console rematch, or they have to play for a "helf-generation" console t

    • When anyone announces their next-generation console, the scramble is on. Interesting that no one seems interested yet.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rwv ( 1636355 )

        When anyone announces their next-generation console, the scramble is on.

        Historically it has been a 7-year cycle. The Wii came out in 2006. That places the Wii 2 (Electric Bugaloo) somewhere in 2013.

        I still play my Wii, though I'm a casual gamer who generally avoids one-player games. Right now Kirby's Epic Yarn is getting a small bit of my attention. I'm caught between thinking it's a fun, simple game and the realization that it was designed for 8-year-olds (note: I'm 28). In any case, it's enjoyable. That's all video games need to achieve... if people have a good time p

  • Anyone who's been a gamer for a while should know that Nintendo has always been like this; they HATE developing new consoles. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming by their competitors. I think it's an outgrowth of their two consoles that pretty much monopolized the market for several years, the NES and the Game Boy, which were great for them; didn't have to budget R&D, just had to sit back and collect the licensing fees. In fact, I forget which console it was (this was back a few years), but

  • I'm more worried about 360 and PS3 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Friday November 19, 2010 @09:28AM (#34281206)

    The five-year-rule is a long-standing tradition for console generations going back to the Atari days (even through several recessions and the console "collapse" of 1982). Both the 360 and PS3 are starting to show their age at this point (especially the 360, which doesn't even have a blu-ray drive), with no new console generation on the horizon. The 360 is now 5 years old and the PS3 is 4, and neither has even announced a new console generation. I'm tired of my console dropping further and further behind PC's, while all MS and Sony want to do is release lame Wii knockoff controllers. I'm tired of consoles that aren't powerful enough to handle MMO's, require multiple disc swaps to support the latest games, and slow to a crawl with modern high res textures.

    Screw Nintendo, and screw Move and Kinect. Give me a new console generation!

    • That's invariable, if you could put in a new graphics card or RAM it wouldn't really be a console anymore. The XBox 360 in particular is really testing the limits of what can reasonably be called a console, as it's more or less a standard computer with a custom OS. At least the PS3 has a non-standard processor.

    • The five-year-rule is a long-standing tradition for console generations going back to the Atari days (even through several recessions and the console "collapse" of 1982). Both the 360 and PS3 are starting to show their age at this point (especially the 360, which doesn't even have a blu-ray drive), with no new console generation on the horizon. The 360 is now 5 years old and the PS3 is 4, and neither has even announced a new console generation. I'm tired of my console dropping further and further behind PC's, while all MS and Sony want to do is release lame Wii knockoff controllers. I'm tired of consoles that aren't powerful enough to handle MMO's, require multiple disc swaps to support the latest games, and slow to a crawl with modern high res textures.

      Screw Nintendo, and screw Move and Kinect. Give me a new console generation!

      The only "new" thing in Console technology recently HAS been motion/video control.
      - Wii came out with motion controllers.
      - PS3 came out with video controllers.
      - 360 came out with an updated video controller.
      - PS3 came out with video augmented motion controller.

      Sony has stated that they foresaw a 10 year lifespan for the PS3. We're now into year 4 and I don't see any indication the Console itself needs to be redesigned. Considering they are still selling PS2s, now in its 10th year, I'd say this is fairly l

    • Be careful what you wish for.

      The next MS console will not have a Blu-Ray drive. You don't honestly think Microsoft is going to pay its number one competitor for every unit shipped, do you? I doubt it will even have a disc drive at all. Say goodbye to bringing games to your friends' house and the second hand game market.

      Honestly, it sounds like you would do better with a PC, what with all the modern high res MMO playing you do. Don't look for love in a coffin, and don't play games with no true ending on

  • I honestly think that the Wii is just fine. Its targeted at casual gamers, whereas 360 seems to be the young gamer crowd and PS3 seems to be the more hardcore gamers. By giving the Wii time on the market they're just going to build up an immense game library. I do think Kinect may throw a wrench in nintendo's machine though. The kinect is the first peripheral I've ever seen that has made game-o-phobes interested in playing. My girlfriends mother for example, was given a wii. She got frustrated when she kept

  • No need to rush (Score:2, Insightful)

    by haggus71 ( 1051238 )

    They aren't too excited about rushing a product to sale for a couple of reasons

    The main reason is...they don't NEED to. The Wii is still the number one seller out there, and has universal appeal. The PS3 is the elite blue ray graphics console, and the 360 is the FPS console. Both have their niches. The Wii won't be in trouble because everyone, from 8 year olds to grandmas in assisted living centers, can and does play the Wii. Yeah, the "gamer" niche isn't there, but really, that market isn't that big i

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dwedit ( 232252 )

      The Wii tends to freeze/overheat a lot after you boot it up when you have WiiConnect24 enabled. You must disable that feature to stop the freezes.

  • 3ds (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19, 2010 @10:45AM (#34281998)

    "Has the innovator been out-innovated due to a sluggish product roadmap?"

    Umm, in case you didn't notice, the 3DS is Nintendo's next big innovation. The next Wii will follow after that. Nintendo doesn't just throw a bunch of shit against the wall and sees what sticks, like Sony does. They make a concentrated effort and focus.

  • I anticipated this would happen from the start. Even back at the release of the Wii the limited power of the hardware and the standard definition graphics was a sore point. The novelty of the controllers, however generally beat back those concerns, at least initially. But then it also become apparent that while the Wiimote is great with some games with many others it hinders gameplay. And things were worse when cross-platform games where significantly scaled back for the Wii.

    So I anticipated that Nintendo w

  • "Today the Wii’s biggest drawback is its diminutive hardware specs and options. There’s no high-definition playback and no significant built-in storage," This is what they were saying at launch, and it never made a difference. I still don't care that I can't play blu-ray discs, I don't have any, but I can play all the old gamecube games that the kids still love, and the Wii just has too many killer games. People laughed when the new controllers were announced back when it was called Revolution

  • This is the same exact article that's been coming out since well before the Wii was released. Underpowered systems are definitely doomed. Without an update they're screwed. The Wii has relegated to the scrap heap by articles like this for 4 years now, the author really, really wants graphic quality to be the main determinant of game console sales, and the article is another sad attempt to prove that personal belief but is contradicted by reality. Hardcore gamers might care a lot, but most people don't gi

  • I've had a Wii since launch. I have over a hundred games, and I'd say there is around 20 that are triple A titles worth bying a Wii for.

    For the next Wii I'd really like to see:

    proper 1080p HD gfx - imagine how good SMG would look, for example, or SMBW in glorious 1080p. Sonic Unleashed has some impressive gfx engine as well. Even Gutiar hero looks better on 360 than Wii, and that's just stupid shapes moving on a screen.

    Surround sound

    More memory I'm running out of game save space.

    A better multiplayer setup

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