Not looking good for the Wii is it?

Rumours are rife that the successor to Wii will be announced at this year's E3. Similar power wise to XB360, maybe a little more, controller with HD touchscreen (games can be streamed to it, I suppose in a similar way to how PSP works with PS3 in remote play), motion control still seems to be in. Release for Christmas 2012.

Speculation a plenty.
 
WeasteDevil said:
Yes, so when the XB720 and PS4 arrive in say 2014 it's going to look very dated again if the rumours are true.
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So you don't buy the idea that PS3 has a ten year lifecycle? The Wii has proven it doesn't matter what the graphics look like but the question will be, will the gazillions of people who never bought a console before be casual enough to stay with the Wii or will they upgrade?
 
Team Brian GB said:
So you don't buy the idea that PS3 has a ten year lifecycle? The Wii has proven it doesn't matter what the graphics look like but the question will be, will the gazillions of people who never bought a console before be casual enough to stay with the Wii or will they upgrade?
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That's a good question. I think grandma will stick with her Wii, Wii sports, and her balance board. Upgrading the graphics isn't really going to get them anywhere with the casual crowd IMO, however, if it is around XB360 power level or a bit more, say it can do 1080p for most games @ 30fps, then all the XB360 and PS3 games then become portable to it, so it should garner more 3rd party support for the main franchises - the things the Wii lacked. Combine that with Nintendo's own efforts, and also keep a good stream of casual stuff, and it might just work.

Trouble is in my mind that both the Sony and Microsoft systems now also have the motion control, and both Kinect and Move will probably come as standard in the next iterations of their consoles, which both will be far more powerful and maybe only a year and a half later down the line, so what is Nintendo going to bring to the table to differentiate itself other than its own first party software? A touch screen on a controller, well, Sony will already have the ability to do that at the end of this year with NGP over remote play with the PS3. Nintendo also have an Achilles heel, they need to have a fully fledged online platform if they want to attract the traditional gamers. Do they have the ability to deliver that?
 
It's going to be interesting to see how such a move makes the other two move. I'd expect Microsoft to be the first to respond. Sony, really, on a technical level doesn't need to move in response, yet probably has the greatest flexibility to do so. Cell is such a powerhouse that even today it can hold its own against the top end Intel CPUs, however, most 3rd party games are GPU heavy in terms of code, and most can't be bothered to offload the work that is designed for the GPU onto the Cell, it's simply not worth the effort. What DICE is doing with Battlefield 3 however is interesting as they are doing exactly that.

All PS4 really needs to be is a PS3 with an updated modern GPU and RAM system, it will cut the mustard and be cheap to do. They could probably put one together in 6 months. If they want to get fancy, use that Toshiba technology that places one Cell on top of the other.

Anyway.....


  • the console is codenamed "Project Café"
  • will be introduced at E3 2011
  • architecture is very similar to the Xbox 360; the Café is a bit more powerful than the 360
  • porting current xbox 360 titles to the Café should be very easy
  • should be retro-compatible with GameCube and Wii games, and support all Wii peripherals
  • Specs : CPU is custom IBM PowerPC with three cores, GPU should be an ATI from the R700 family, with a shader unit at version 4.1. Ram should be at least 512 Mb.
  • the controller is a touch tablet, with moderate graphic output (appears to be sub-HD, so nothing comparable to an Ipad, for example.)
  • controller specs : 6-inch screen, single touch (so no multitouch, it seems), front camera, acts as a wii sensor bar, has a d-pad, two bumpers, two triggers, possibly more.
  • should be released in June of 2012 (for Japan ?), and holiday season (in the West ?)
  • there is another big surprise they can't talk about just yet
 
WeasteDevil said:
It's going to be interesting to see how such a move makes the other two move. I'd expect Microsoft to be the first to respond. Sony, really, on a technical level doesn't need to move in response, yet probably has the greatest flexibility to do so. Cell is such a powerhouse that even today it can hold its own against the top end Intel CPUs, however, most 3rd party games are GPU heavy in terms of code, and most can't be bothered to offload the work that is designed for the GPU onto the Cell, it's simply not worth the effort. What DICE is doing with Battlefield 3 however is interesting as they are doing exactly that.

All PS4 really needs to be is a PS3 with an updated modern GPU and RAM system, it will cut the mustard and be cheap to do. They could probably put one together in 6 months. If they want to get fancy, use that Toshiba technology that places one Cell on top of the other.

Anyway.....



  • the console is codenamed "Project Café"
  • will be introduced at E3 2011
  • architecture is very similar to the Xbox 360; the Café is a bit more powerful than the 360
  • porting current xbox 360 titles to the Café should be very easy
  • should be retro-compatible with GameCube and Wii games, and support all Wii peripherals
  • Specs : CPU is custom IBM PowerPC with three cores, GPU should be an ATI from the R700 family, with a shader unit at version 4.1. Ram should be at least 512 Mb.
  • the controller is a touch tablet, with moderate graphic output (appears to be sub-HD, so nothing comparable to an Ipad, for example.)
  • controller specs : 6-inch screen, single touch (so no multitouch, it seems), front camera, acts as a wii sensor bar, has a d-pad, two bumpers, two triggers, possibly more.
  • should be released in June of 2012 (for Japan ?), and holiday season (in the West ?)
  • there is another big surprise they can't talk about just yet
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We should all buy one then.
 
I have a feeling the next generation of consoles will all have more Cloud-based support.

I think Nintendo will want to somehow develop their StreetPass system from the 3DS into their new console, and maybe even making use of the 3DS in a controller capacity; though perhaps more like the PSP - PS3 connection. Perhaps the new controller will be the bottom half of a DS but made a little more ergonomic; DreamCast controller anyone?

I'm excited by the new Nintendo console for sure though. Some proper HD Mario/Zelda would be wonderful.
 
WeasteDevil said:
Rumours are rife that the successor to Wii will be announced at this year's E3. Similar power wise to XB360, maybe a little more, controller with HD touchscreen (games can be streamed to it, I suppose in a similar way to how PSP works with PS3 in remote play), motion control still seems to be in. Release for Christmas 2012.

Speculation a plenty.
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Sounds like what Sega did with the Dreamcast controllers
 
"I'm not allowed to say anything, but I'm pretty sure that Nintendo's market dominance will not fade away with their next machine. Of all the speculations and rumors circulating the internet, please forget all the ones telling that the machine is on par with the 360. These are based on the specs sheet Nintendo gave to a selected few developers right after the e3 in 2010. Not the latest development kits.

Let me tell you this. It will not be a step forward like the transition from PSOne to PS2, but it blows the current competition out of the water with it's chosen chipset. At the moment there isn't a console on the market that could run Crysis like the PC does. I'm sure that Crysis will run on Nintendo's new baby without any diffculties. But like the 3DS and it's 3D, that raw power only counts if you leave it's main feature off."
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:lol:

Expect a system with a fan as big as your TV. Speculators!
 
WeasteDevil said:
:lol:

Expect a system with a fan as big as your TV. Speculators!
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Is that guy reliable, even though I clicked on his wiki page, I don't know if he's supposed to have ITK within nintendo circles.

Do you think what he says could be true? If so, that thing will make the price of the launch PS3 seem cheap.
 
Devil_forever said:
Is that guy reliable, even though I clicked on his wiki page, I don't know if he's supposed to have ITK within nintendo circles.

Do you think what he says could be true? If so, that thing will make the price of the launch PS3 seem cheap.
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Launching is 2012, I don't see how it's possible to put that into a small box, no. People moan today about PS3 fan noise with Cell on 40nm and RSX on 45nm. It certainly does not make sense for Nintendo to go down such a route. What he's basically saying there is that it has a Cell/i5/i7 level CPU and at least an 8800GTX level GPU.
 
I don't know who he is, but it's interesting seeing how he's a developer. I was expecting it to be some analyst's "prediction".

Latest thing I've heard is that Rockstar has a devkit and it working on GTA V for it.
 
WeasteDevil said:
Launching is 2012, I don't see how it's possible to put that into a small box, no. People moan today about PS3 fan noise with Cell on 40nm and RSX on 45nm. It certainly does not make sense for Nintendo to go down such a route. What he's basically saying there is that it has a Cell/i5/i7 level CPU and at least an 8800GTX level GPU.
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My ps3 slim is extremely quiet. If you don't think its possible, do you know his motivations behind saying it? Do you think it'll be at around the power level of the 360 then? If it is, its going to be outdated extremely quickly and then they'll be back to square one in terms of lagging behind Sony and Microsoft and they won't have a gimmick as their unique selling point either.
 
Devil_forever said:
My ps3 slim is extremely quiet. If you don't think its possible, do you know his motivations behind saying it? Do you think it'll be at around the power level of the 360 then? If it is, its going to be outdated extremely quickly and then they'll be back to square one in terms of lagging behind Sony and Microsoft and they won't have a gimmick as their unique selling point either.
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I have no clue, but a 8800GTX has a core transistor count around 3x that of RSX. I don't know why he has said it, but I doubt he's telling fibbies, maybe just exaggerating a little? Consoles, because they are generally small closed boxes, can't really afford to go bananas with the very latest technology due to power draw and heat issues. Sony were very clever with their cooling system to enable them to keep the PSU inside the case, XB360 has a huge external brick for its power supply as an example.

It's a possibility that he's talking about a development kit, rather than the end product. Devkits normally have a bit extra in terms of RAM and processing that doesn't always end up in the final retail model. An example of this is what Kojima got with MGS4 and what the final retail PS3 actually was.
 
It is ridiculous how a few bits of speculation can send the rumour mill into overdrive, I almost want Nintendo turn up at E3 and be their typical selves spending an hour showing Miyamoto playing Zelda and have some bloke go through spreadsheets about how they're changing gaming forever.
 
I read somewhere that they'll be using some upcoming AMD CPU/GPU solution that's 28nm, consumes little power and is cheap. Also those hybrid CPU+GPU things won't really need too much space and cooling.

Of course they won't be as powerful as a high end pc cards or CPUs but they'll probably blow the xbox and ps3 out of the water. Especially if Nintendo add 1gb ram.
 
It would be interesting to see if they promote the wii and this new console (i dont believe its a wii2 at all, something new) together at the same time. Nintendo kept going on about how the wii wasnt a nexr gen console but a new gen console (obvious bull), but i can see them still promoting the wii. Wii for the casual, poo (new console) for the hardcore gamers.
 
FreakyJim said:
I read somewhere that they'll be using some upcoming AMD CPU/GPU solution that's 28nm, consumes little power and is cheap. Also those hybrid CPU+GPU things won't really need too much space and cooling.

Of course they won't be as powerful as a high end pc cards or CPUs but they'll probably blow the xbox and ps3 out of the water. Especially if Nintendo add 1gb ram.
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RAM is an issue, but as for performance, Cell can knock out around 250GFLOPs, RSX around 250 million polys per second and 12 billion or so textels per second. The GPU component in say the iPad 2 by comparison pushes around 35 million and 1 billion respectively. CPU wise, I think that the A5 in the iPad 2 struggles to push 160MFLOPs. This is the weakness of these SoC integrated CPU/GPU jobbies, as they are designed to use as little power as possible as they are aimed at the portable market.
 
Nintendo annual profits slump 66%

Video games giant Nintendo has seen its annual profits slump by 66%, hurt by a strong yen and a drop in sales.

Net profit for the year to the end of March came in at 77.6bn yen ($945m; £570m), compared with 228.6bn yen the previous year, its results showed.

The company said that while it had not suffered any direct damage from last month's earthquake, it expected it to weigh on consumer spending in Japan.

Nintendo also announced that it will release a successor to the Wii in 2012.

Net sales fell 29% to 1.014 trillion yen.

Nintendo also faces a growing challenge from smartphones and tablets. In a bid to fight back, it launched the 3DS, a handheld console that provides a 3D experience for users without the need to wear special glasses.

The company said the device, which launched in February in Japan and in March in the US, Europe and Australia, had a "smooth start in sales", which totalled 3.61 million worldwide.

New model

In a separate statement, Nintendo said it had decided to launch a system to succeed the Wii next year.

It will give a demonstration of the new model at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles in June.

Nintendo has sold 86 million units of the Wii since its launch in 2006.

But sales of the console are falling - 15.1 million were sold in the year to March, down from 20.1 million the previous year.

And Nintendo expects sales of about 13 million in the next year.

By comparison, rival Microsoft has also seen a slight fall in sales of its Xbox - it sold 10.3 million in the year to March 2010, down from 11.2 million the previous year.

But Sony has seen a rise in sales of its Playstation 3. It sold 13 million units in the year to March 2010, up from 10.1 million the year before.
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BBC News - Nintendo annual profits slump 66%
 
I'm surprised they are not releasing the new console in time for the holidays.
 
I thought the Wii had won this generation's console war?

They make shit consoles btw. Well unless you're under 12.
 
WeasteDevil said:
Well that depends on whether they keep Wii in production when this new console hits, and then how long Sony and Microsoft keep the PS3 and XB360 going and at what price. It's possible that both could at the end of the day outsell the Wii.
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And is it true that the next generation consoles will most likely not be coming out for awhile due to the Kinect and Move? Because I haven't seen any 'proper' title that really uses this technology properly.
 
WeasteDevil said:
You mean a proper title specifically developed for them rather than being tacked on?
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Yes, and also not something for a child, although I don't know if that would work, in which case the technology isn't really all that.
 
WeasteDevil said:
Well that depends on whether they keep Wii in production when this new console hits, and then how long Sony and Microsoft keep the PS3 and XB360 going and at what price. It's possible that both could at the end of the day outsell the Wii.
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What are the worldwide sales figures for the three from launch until now Weaste?
 
WeasteDevil said:
86m for Wii
45m each for the other two.
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Neither Sony nor Microsoft will be able to catch up to the wii. At their current rate of sales (and thats if the Wii stops selling completely) it will take them around 4 years to catch up, not to mention that the new nintendo console will without a doubt take away prospective customers from both Sony and Microsoft as I doubt it'll go after the casual market as heavily as the Wii.

Mind you the 'next gen' consoleb wars are going to be interesting to say the least, given that Nintendo will launch their new machine at least 2 years before Sony and Microsoft. If it's got the power capablities and takes a good chunk of the more hardcore market, then Sony and Microsoft may be picking up the scraps.

What I can forsee is that if the Wii 2, sells a truckload, Sony and Microsoft will bring forward their launch plans for their next iterations.
 
What happens though when PS3 hits 150 quid?

Will Wii 2 sell bucketloads? If the Wii has taught us anything it's that the masses aren't interested in graphical capability at all. Not even HD gaming, so even if it can pull off 1080p @ 60fps, what selling point does it have?

It's going to get PS3 and XB360 ports due to their expanding install base, and then both of them are going to be updated.
 
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