Nintendo Officially Announces Wii Successor

Tweet

Well, it’s official: Nintendo has finally revealed that they’re working on a new home console and it will be out sometime in 2012, meaning that at least some of the rumors we’ve been hearing over the past few weeks are true. While we don’t have many details yet on the new console (read: absolutely none at all), Nintendo said in their announcement that they plan to show the new system at E3 2011, as was originally predicted.

At this point, though, that’s really all Nintendo feels like sharing, besides pointing out that they’re not including the console’s sales in financial forecasts for the fiscal terms leading up to March 2012, or the end of quarter 2 for fiscal year 2012. This means that we’re probably not going to see a launch before April 2012, though when it actually will release is really anyone’s guess.

This move by Nintendo is no doubt putting pressure on Sony and Microsoft: they’ve both said they’re committed to a ten year life cycle for their respective consoles, meaning that Nintendo’s new machine will have three years on the next Xbox and four on the next PlayStation, provided Sony and Microsoft decide to stick with their plans in light of this new announcement. Then again, Nintendo has never considered their consoles to be a part of the console wars that reignite at the beginning of every new generation, so maybe Microsoft and Sony should start thinking that way too.

Whatever happens though, there’s still a lot of questions that need to be answered about Project Cafe: is it going the utilize motion control technology like the Wii? Does it really have a touchscreen controller? Is rivaling what’s inside the Xbox 360 and PS3 really good enough for the next generation?

Also, while we’re at it: when will Princess Peach learn to just stay away from suspicious looking dinosaurs, and when will Zelda realize she’s probably better off just staying in her damn castle? Finally, how come Mario is still fat, even though his entire life is basically just a consistent cardiovascular workout? Is it a problem with metabolism or is it just a poor choice of diet? While I don’t expect Nintendo to address all of these concerns, I imagine that we’ll get our fill of Project Cafe details when E3 kicks off in Los Angeles on June 7th.