Wii 2 predictions

Recently there’s been rumours going around about Nintendo revealing something about the successor to Wii at E3 2011… which isn’t that far away now.

It’s always fun to speculate stuff and I thought I’d start a discussion regarding what you think Nintendo will do with their next generation console, what you think they should do and what you think they should avoid doing. I know there are heavily divided opinions of Wii so I think this’ll end up being quite interesting…

Here’s what I think Nintendo may or may not do…

• Name: Nintendo will definitely keep the Wii branding, I’m kind of betting that they’ll call it “Wii Plus” rather than Wii 2 or Wii HD.
• High Definition: Will definitely be HD capable, 720p, 720 upscaled to 1080p (this is what most games do on current generation consoles) and full 1080p HD.
• Hardware Capabilities: “More powerful” than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360… I put that in quotation marks because as we all know, power is relative and it depends on the architecture of the hardware for Wii 2. I’m thinking it’ll definitely top the PS3 and 360, but will probably fall short of Sony and Microsoft’s next-gen consoles.
• Controls: They’re definitely going to keep the Wii Remote + Nunchuk type controls with a few tweaks. They’ll probably find a way to integrate the Wii Vitality Sensor in there some how, oh and built-in motion plus or some kind of upgrade to motion plus. I’m hoping they can somehow integrate a more traditional controller layout directly onto the Wii Remote + Nunchuk and eliminate the need for having to buy any type of Classic controller altogether. However, what I really want Nintendo to do is refine and perfect the pointer/cursor controls they started with Wii.
• Disc storage: DVD is nowhere near enough any more and I doubt Nintendo will embrace Blu-ray. There have been rumours that Nintendo has been investing in holographic storage technology. Whatever they’re up to, you can bet that Nintendo will be going about this in such a way that doesn’t allow you to watch movies using the system.
• On-board storage: Taking a wild guess here, but at least 32GB flash storage and SD card support for up to 32GB. Though I’m sure most of us are hoping for 500gb HDD storage since that’s what we expect from all three console manufacturers.
• Backward compatibility: BC for Wii games but I don’t think they’ll go as far back with GameCube games. It’s a possibility but I have doubts. They can easily allow the use of current versions of the Wii Remote and accessories since it’s all connected through the Wii Remote’s bluetooth. They’ll include an option to transfer WiiVC and WiiWare titles through a similar transfer system the 3DS employs to transfer stuff over from your DS/DSi. However, the biggest thing I’m looking for is the ability to transfer save files over from your Wii to the new console since some of the saves are “locked” on the Wii console. Also hoping that it’ll upscale Wii games up to 1080p… the icing on the cake would be if it did anti-aliasing as well.
• Online: They will most likely use the 3DS system with a universal friend code and the capability of tracking your friends and joining games that they’re playing. I doubt Nintendo’s online plan will hold up to PlayStation Network and Xbox Live though.
• Release Date: I’m guessing some time in 2012, possibly later in the year.

Now here’s one final thing I want to talk about that I don’t want to include with the others listed…

• 3D: Nintendo has said themselves that they’re not going to be going with 3D on their next-gen console like they have with the 3DS. I doubt they’ll follow Sony’s line with 3D either… but I do think that they will have a 3D effect happening with their next-gen console based around head tracking. This can easily be achieved by adding a camera to the sensor bar… won’t work very well for multiple people playing on the same console, but excellent for the single player or online multiplayer experience. Having this as a standard for all games (which can be turned off if necessary) would be so damn awesome.