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Nintendo Wii Games

Nintendo Announces Wii Successor for 2012 287

Posted by CmdrTaco from the gimme-a-new-mario-please dept.
motang writes "Nintendo has officially announced the successor to the Wii. At its investors meeting, Nintendo said they have decided to launch the successor to the Wii in 2012 after the fiscal year, and will show it off and have a playable version at this year's E3."
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Nintendo Announces Wii Successor for 2012 More

Nintendo Announces Wii Successor for 2012

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  • Upgrade (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PitaBred ( 632671 )

    If this will play all the old Wii games and output in 1080p, they've got one sold to me already. The Wii is tons of fun, but the low-res graphics get a little obnoxious on a huge-screen TV.

    • Marginally sharper pictures do not improve games.

      • No, but good games that give you a headache are just as unplayable as bad games (I'm thinking LoZ:TP as my anecdotal example here).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

          How does it give you a headache?

          I play Atari on my HDTV.

          • I've never tried that. And a lot of times, it's not a problem, but Twilight Princess was particularly bad for me in that regard. I did say it was anecdotal, though. I don't know why I got the headache, but inside of two hours, jackhammer time.

          • I believe the difference is in the fact that developers are still trying to develop rich and detailed environments despite the poor video output capabilities of the console. GP's mention of Twilight Princess is a good point; also take a look at Monster Hunter Tri. Both have very detailed environments that look muddy and cluttered at 480 lines of resolution. An Atari and NES, for example, had relatively simple graphics and environments, so there wasn't nearly as much strain to make out all the details.

        • I apologize if this is a dumb question, but did you get the component display cable for the Wii? Playing the Wii on my 46" drove me nuts until I sprung for that connection.

          • No. When I first got the Wii, I had a regular old TV. By the time I went HD later, I'd lost my interest in the system. I just went back to finally play through Zelda to kill a holiday weekend.

            • Ah, well if you decide to get back into it, keep those cables in mind. The problem isn't that the Wii's output sucks, the problem is that modern HDTV's interpret the signal lousily. It's something I will never understand.

              • The problem is that NTSC over composite really sucks. There is a significant amount of aliasing that results in dot crawl (vertical lines will be jagged if the colors are too harshly distinct). You can mitigate the worst of the aliasing problems by using S-Video cables if you are limited to a standard definition display. Many HDTV sets have a 3d comb filter to partially anti-alias the NTSC signal, but you can't do it perfectly and there will always be fuzziness and/or dot crawl depending on your display. Ch

                • It's not NTSC over composite. It's a proper 480p output if you enable it in the Wii menu. I have no problems with dot crawl, all the graphics are MUCH sharper (especially the HUD style things), and so on.

                  Really, get the component cables. They're $10-$15.

              • Re:Upgrade (Score:4, Informative)

                by VGPowerlord ( 621254 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @01:00PM (#35932010)

                Ah, well if you decide to get back into it, keep those cables in mind. The problem isn't that the Wii's output sucks, the problem is that modern HDTV's interpret the signal lousily. It's something I will never understand.

                ...and don't forget to change the output to 480p (NTSC) or 576p (PAL) in the Wii's settings.

                Progressive scan really is better than interlaced.

                If you're playing GameCube games on the Wii, you may have to hold a button down to get the option to play in progressive mode (B on the GameCube controller by default, I think).

      • Marginally sharper pictures do not improve games.

        I'm getting tired of the meme that graphics are good enough and don't matter any more. My favorite game is Forza 3, and it would DEFINITELY be better at 1080p with a solid 60 fps (rather than the current un-aliased 720 with noticeable stuttering, and cardboard cutout pit crews). I cannot see how that could not be considered an improvement.

        • Marginally sharper pictures do not improve games.

          I'm getting tired of the meme that graphics are good enough and don't matter any more. My favorite game is Forza 3, and it would DEFINITELY be better at 1080p with a solid 60 fps (rather than the current un-aliased 720 with noticeable stuttering, and cardboard cutout pit crews). I cannot see how that could not be considered an improvement.

          Frame-rate is tied to the control of the game, so there's some merit to what you say. But as far as cardboard cutout pit crews go, you wouldn't be noticing those after a few plays. Improved graphics are nice, but a faster processor doesn't make the game more fun.

          • Improved graphics are nice, but a faster processor doesn't make the game more fun.

            oh come on, even if improved realism in physics and AI dont float your boat, wacky ragdoll physics and thousands of objects make stuff a lot of fun

            • Improved graphics are nice, but a faster processor doesn't make the game more fun.

              oh come on, even if improved realism in physics and AI dont float your boat, wacky ragdoll physics and thousands of objects make stuff a lot of fun

              You're not describing graphics, you're describing gameplay mechanics. Nobody said improved graphics don't open doors for new gameplay.

      • Sure they do, if the game is already good in the first place. If I have to choose graphics or gameplay, I'll choose gameplay any day. But I'd ideally like to have both.

    • Outputting crappy graphics in higher res will make no difference whatsoever - it can't very well output what the game wasn't designed to do. Unless we're talking some nifty post processing stuff (high AA at least), but that seems doubtful.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        Outputting crappy graphics in higher res will make no difference whatsoever

        That is not quite true. When you send a 480p signal (say from the Wii component out) to your 1080p television it scales up each final frame. That is to say its stretching the entire image.

        If you increase the resolution on the back side (depending on how the libraries work, I have not seen Nintendo's SDK) you can get better results. Objects will still have the same amount of definition, but planes will be larger. So if you have say a brick wall in your game, (a simple polygon) with a brick texture applie

      • Outputting crappy graphics in higher res will make no difference whatsoever

        For 2D games i'd agree with you.

        For 3D games however while you can't render what isn't there rendering in a higher resolution will mean less information is lost in the rendering stage. This means that on a large screen what is supposed to be a straight edge between two objects will actually look like a straight edge and not a blurry/blocky mess.

        • Even for 2D games, it's not quite true. I just played Space Quest 5 through using DOSBox's HQ3x mode. The scaling algorithm is designed to preserve gradients and straight lines in the source, and to add antialiasing to both. It looks much nicer than SQ5 looked on my old PC, back in the '90s. For some reason, GOG.com's default DOSBox config file used linear scaling, so I saw both versions.

    • If it plays all the old Wii games and outputs in 480p over HDMI, I'll still buy. Low-res graphics are tolerable to me, but a fuzzy picture and unsaturated colors are pretty obnoxious. I just want my 480p to be clearer and more vibrant.

      • Get the component cables. I had the same complaints until I got them. And make sure you switch the option in the menu after you do so.

        • I have them. Got some great quality ones shipped for under $10 on Monoprice, and I've recommended them to everyone just to make the Wii tolerable on a flat screen. I'm just a little more a perfectionist than that. You still get dot crawl and muddy colors with component.

          That's aside from the fact that my A/V receiver is HDMI-based and I would love to have everything hooked up to the same place.

          • My TV may not have the best analog to digital conversion circuit to drive the screen and maybe others filter the noise better. But I'd rather buy a new Wii than a new TV.

          • Component still looks like crap because they still have the RGB signal processed into YUV. Just hook it up with an RGB cable and it'll be fine. a Wii-to-RGB SCART cable is about £5, and a Wii-to-RGB VGA cable is a little more, depending on where you shop.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vlm ( 69642 )

      If this will play all the old Wii games and output in 1080p, they've got one sold to me already. The Wii is tons of fun, but the low-res graphics get a little obnoxious on a huge-screen TV.

      I wonder about the opposite direction... I hope they continue to have a composite output.

      I don't watch TV very much, and what little I watch would not benefit from HD, so I don't have a HDTV. I have 4800x1200 on my desktop, triple 19 inch LCDs, maybe one of those would have an input compatible with the new wii's outputs...

  • Can't wait (Score:2, Insightful)

    by LoverOfJoy ( 820058 )

    I can't wait for all the wii games to start appearing in the discount bins.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Goffee71 ( 628501 )
      Get 'em quick! Its amazing how the prices of GameCube classics shot up when they became Wii collectables. Time to start hoarding. wii2roundup.blogspot.com
    • Nintendo's first party games don't end up in the bargain bin. I waited for Metroid Prime 2 for the Cube to drop after the Wii came out and it never happened. They just keep them at full price on the shelves until someone eventually buys them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jiro ( 131519 )

        Wii had Metroid Prime Trilogy, which amounts to relatively low prices per game, even though they're not sold individually.

        Gamecube games not going down in price are an exception to the usual rule anwyay because Gamecube games run on the Wii without any hassle. Whether Wii games are discounted will probably depend on whether the Wii successor is backwards compatible.

  • Makes sense. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @10:57AM (#35930076) Homepage Journal

    When the Wii was there where still a lot of none HD TVs in peoples homes so Nintendo targeted standard def and kept the prices low. Now HDTV is very common and thanks to Moores law Nintendo can come out with a console that will probably outperform the 360 and PS/3 and be cheaper. Now Nintendo can produce a new machine that will out perform the completion and cost less just as the Wii sales start to drop. Brilliant marketing plan and it will sell like hotcakes.

    • One more thing: It HAS to run existing Wii games. But so far Nintendo has a pretty good track record (N64->Cube, Cube->Wii) so I'm not too concerned.

      I'm sure our family will upgrade, but I'd hate to have to keep two consoles around. Given that the controllers are bluetooth devices keeping the old controllers working as well should be a no-brainer.

      • You can run N64 games on a gamecube?

        • It seems I had my facts messed up. The Wii does run GC games, but I have no idea why I imagined the GC runs N64 games. Serves me right to post and do housework at the same time... ;)

        • Doubutsu no Mori was source-ported to GameCube as Doubutsu no Mori +, which became Animal Crossing outside Japan. But source ports don't count. More relevant is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Master Quest, which was emulated on GameCube with some minor changes (e.g. Z targeting to L targeting).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

        I have never seen N64 games run on the Gamecube so that is news to me. I don't see any reason why they wouldn't have the new Wii run the old Wii games. Odds are good that they will add some programable shaders and such but keep backward compatibility. It will probably be the must have for Christmas this year.

        • Next year. It's not releasing until 2012. Which is still 2 years earlier than Sony or MS are refreshing their consoles.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

            If they are showing it at E3 I am guessing it will be shipping this Christmas. Only makes sense that if it is playable they will want it out for the Holiday season. Nintendo relies less on 3 party developers for launch titles than any other console maker does.

      • But so far Nintendo has a pretty good track record

        Afaict the Wii is the only console nintendo has released that can play games from it's predecessor directly though ports have been released of some games.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Belial6 ( 794905 )
          It isn't exactly a predecessor, but the GC could play GBA games. They sold an adapter for the cartridge to plug in. The SNES could also play GB and GBC games.
    • I have to say that I'm not thrilled about this. The next Nintendo console will come out in 2012 as the 360 and PS3 are reaching the end of their lifecycles. But even if this system is set up to compete with the other two consoles, I don't foresee developers flocking to develop on the console and then down rez for the PS3 and 360. If anything, this new console will get imports designed for one of the other two systems.

      This also means that when the next Microsoft and Sony systems come out (rumors point to

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Belial6 ( 794905 )
        I'm not buying the phone and tablets market is going to kill consoles. I know a lot of people that play games on their phones and tablets. I don't know anyone that has given up a DS in exchange for one. Some people like me have added them to the mix. Some people don't care about games enough to carry around a dedicated system, so are new customers, not customers taken from the dedicated hand held. Solitaire was by far the PC game that was played by the most people. Virtually every single person with a
    • Yep, just last week all the news outlets were reporting that Sony and Microsoft aren't releasing next-gen consoles anytime soon [pcmag.com]. They seem to have an informal(?) truce between them, but they're creating a big opening for Nintendo.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tuffy ( 10202 )

        It's probably more a matter of neither of them being willing (or able) to lose a lot of money on each unit of new hardware while they're still paying off the losses of the current generation's launch. That's why they've been trying to encourage this generation to last longer than usual.

        Nintendo, on the other hand, generally sells hardware at a profit. This puts them in a good position to bring in a lot of 3rd party development and expand their dominance from the current generation.

      • I wouldn't call that a truce. It's more like a desire to recoup all the investment they put into their respective systems.

    • Brilliant marketing plan and it will sell like hotcakes.

      Maybe, the big seller of the Wii was the low initial cost and ease of use. My mother, father, grandfather could figure out the Wii by flailing their arms. Hand them over a controller with directional pads, tiny joysticks, multiple buttons and you just alienated the market that really bought into the Wii. For the majority of my friends who own multiple consoles we might hold back on this new Nintendo console. For the most of us this will be the first time we might not buy into a launch console from Nintendo

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Belial6 ( 794905 )
        That's funny, because the PS3 and 360 are the first consoles that I have skipped. The online lockdown was what drove me away. In my home we still play 2600, Nes, C64, you name it. We usually keep the current generation systems plugged into TVs in the living room and family room, and then have 1 or 2 older systems on on each of the two TVs.

        The online shackles that are becoming the norm means that using the the systems after they are no longer the current generation continued functionality becomes less

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

        I don't see Nintendo producing a $400 console. So a new wii that sells for $250 with HD output is what I am betting on.

    • The system might be cheap, but I can't imagine how much a Wii remote with a built-in HD capacitive touchscreen will cost.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by brkello ( 642429 )

      The Wii started out from a position of weakness as far as technical specs go. The controller saved them this round.

      If the Wii 2 is technically superior, how in the world do you think it would be cheaper? You know, the prices for the components of the 360 and PS3 go down over time.

      Sales of the Wii have plummeted the last 2 years and profits are down. They need to come out with a new system.

      This wasn't a marketing strategy...I think it is bizarre that you think it was one. Now th

  • Wow, someone smarter/more anal than me should do a full count of all the grammatical errors in that summary. I count at least 5, that's gotta be a record.

  • It's on! (Score:3)

    by StikyPad ( 445176 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @11:04AM (#35930194) Homepage

    It's on like [name withheld].

    (Credit to Bluebreaker in TFA's comments).

  • And now for the second time in as many years, Nintendo is cutting the legs off a system at the top of its game for no better reason than that the developers were crying for pretty pictures. What ever happened to the things that matter?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PKFC ( 580410 )

      I thought you trusted that Nintendo didn't release hardware just for the sake of releasing hardware. The 3DS is a speed bump, but does add 3D, a gyro from the wiimote tech and a pedometer from the pokewalker. The play coins are a cool feature and improves upon the chances of finding someone to streetpass which is also a cool feature. No one knows the feature list of the next home console (being more important than the spec sheet) and so no one can really say. That said, it is disappointing to know that ther

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

        There are always games being made for consoles at the end of their lives. There were new games released for the PS2 last year. The ps3 came out years ago.

      • I thought you trusted that Nintendo didn't release hardware just for the sake of releasing hardware.

        I did. Unfortunately, Nintendo has done much to disillusion me in the last year or so.

        The 3DS is a speed bump, but does add 3D, a gyro from the wiimote tech and a pedometer from the pokewalker.

        3D and the pedometer fall squarely into the gimmick category: nifty gee-whiz novelties, but not capable of improving games. Likewise for the speed bump. The gyro might have been another story if it weren't clearly an afterthought, and the same goes for the AR system.

    • Re:Well, there goes Nintendo... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by PitaBred ( 632671 ) <slashdot.pitabred@dyndns@org> on Monday April 25, 2011 @11:48AM (#35930884) Homepage

      Top of it's game? The Wii's sales have plateaued, and game sales have gone down. As long as they are backwards compatible, I can't see this as anything but a good move. It'll cannibalize a few sales this Christmas, but they can't be counting on too many there anyway.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Daetrin ( 576516 )
        Just to elaborate on your already Insightful comment, the "top of its game" is pretty much the right point to announce a successor for any kind of electronics. By definition, once you've reached the "top of your game," it's all downhill from there. You've got to be careful to measure "your game" correctly so you can catch the "good" part of the downhill slope before the actual release, but you never want to wait so long that the old version clearly sucks now. You want people saying "the old one was great, i

  • Easy (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by lennier1 ( 264730 )

    The Wii is basically two Gamecubes duct taped together.
    Following that logic next year's consoles will be two Wiis combined?

    • No I don't want to come play with your WiiWii.

      *Bows head in shame for the lame joke*

      Sign me up for one of these.

    • The Wii is basically two Gamecubes duct taped together.

      Oh wow, I had forgotten about that silly attempt to discredit the Wii. Blast from the past!

  • They may not have confirmed any details, but this gives a lot more credit to the rumors that were going around earlier. [slashdot.org] The internet seems to have gotten pretty good at confirming stuff like this. Certainly _most_ of the rumors around the announcement of the PSP2 and 3DS turned out to be on target. "Back in the day" you'd barely hear anything about new hardware before E3 or TGS. Now rumors start hitting the internet months early and whoever it is usually breaks down and releases a bare bones press release c
  • ...I'll upgrade eventually, if they want my coin quicker it will need to output to HDMI, and even then I will probably wait for the first price break. I don't game like i used to so it works for me at this point.

    If I had one complaint - its more directed at EA Sports - I would like to use the classic controllers on Madden.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Belial6 ( 794905 )
      At this point, there is little point in supporting any other output than HDMI. $100 monitors support it. All new TVs support it.

      More interesting would be if they went back to solid state for distributing games. I hacked my Wiis because while I am find with optical media as my master copy, I don't use optical media for daily use. It is unsuitable for that purpose. With the price of SD cards these days, they could make SD the standard media format, and if they built the system to support USB SD card r

  • You're ignoring the most important part! (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @11:30AM (#35930588)

    The announcement was light on details, but this caught my eye...

    the system's rumored codename, "Project Cafe," hints at its ability to shoot a cappuccino directly into your gaping mouth.

    It's about time someone in the console industry started paying attention to their adult customers!

    • Then they would have called it Project tubgirl.

    • It's about time someone in the console industry started paying attention to their adult customers!

      You didn't think the wiimote was designed to be shaped the way it is just because it looked nice, did you?

  • My WII 1 is still on back order, this sucks.

  • Sony and Microsoft have no answer (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Daniel Phillips ( 238627 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @12:41PM (#35931688)

    Neither Sony nor Microsoft has breathed a word about a substantive upgrade to their console offerings. By substantive, I mean memory, processor and graphics competitive with a modern PC. Why the silence? In my opinion, because it cannot be done economically. Both Sony and Microsoft currently sit deep in a multibillion dollar hole of losses from the current generation fiasco. How can either justify a new cycle of hardware engineering, manufacturing engineering, SDK development and product promotion? Another round of impossible engineering choices trying to stuff PC class hardware into a consumer electronics form factor? It is anybody's guess whether either will attempt it, but this is sure: neither is anywhere close to taking the plunge. Game publishers and developers have heard nothing but silence in regards to possible specs of a follow on high end console generation. This strengthens my belief that the high end console has died and will not rise again. Cutesy and cheap like Nintendo is the only economically viable choice for a console vendor today.

    • They (Sony & Microsoft) may not have announced anything, but it's asinine to think that they haven't already gone through engineering and R&D processes. They are likely experimenting now, and waiting for the price of hardware to come down. I've played a few recent games and the graphics seem to look better and better every year.

      I suspect in the Xbox's case the limited size of the medium (DVD discs) will become a factor before CPU and video will.

      • They (Sony & Microsoft) may not have announced anything, but it's asinine to think that they haven't already gone through engineering and R&D processes. They are likely experimenting now, and waiting for the price of hardware to come down.

        So you think they both have highly secret engineering projects at an advanced state? Let me break it to you: we would have heard about it, this is the age of the leak. I say, this silence is the sound of moratorium imposed by corporate beancounters.

  • Will it actually make use of the Internet connection it has? First, their browser could have been at the forefront of living room web browsing. But it sucks. Flash support on it sucks. And I'm pretty sure it's not even updated or being worked on any more. Then you've got the plethora of games that would (could? should?) have online multiplayer or downloadable updates available, but don't. I really like multiplayer trivia games, especially with people over. Trivial Pursuit even looks like it has suppo

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