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HappySqurriel on 01 March 2010
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Joelcool7 said:
HappySqurriel said:

I think everything that anyone could suggest would be speculation because no one knows for sure ...

Personally, I wouldn’t be that surprised if there was a redesigned Wii coming out in the not too distant future. This change could be mostly cosmetic for sales purposes (smaller or colours) but it could also incorporate fairly major internal changes to prevent piracy. Before introducing a change like this, Nintendo might keep the supply chain tight so that there were (very) few "old-style" Wii systems remaining unsold prior to releasing the upgraded version.

A more substantial change might also be possible, and Nintendo could do something more in line with the "Gameboy Color" and try to produce an enhanced Wii of some form. If you introduced significant increases in piracy protection while producing a reason for existing owners to upgrade Nintendo could drastically reduce the level of piracy on the Wii. The most obvious possibility for a change like this would be a system that rendered Wii games at HD resolutions, but there are (probably) many other possibilities.

Note: For those that didn't know, in most ways the Gameboy color was identical to the Gameboy and the handful of "Gameboy Color" only games were not released on the Gameboy because color was needed to play the game. The reason I used this as an example is that I think Nintendo would want to keep any new system as being (basically) the same platform.

There are some flaws in that logic.

An HD Wii woul.d require heavier firepower under the hood. Why would Nintendo bother releasing a modified Wii four years into its five year lifespan? Nintendo has said several times that the next console will be HD, we know it coming so why release a modified Wii only a year or so before the next console launches. I have to agree with the Regginator on this one, it makes no sense for Nintendo to release a Wii:HD. We will see Nintendo HD support next gen.

In the end the Wii doesn't have much longer to live, the competition (Microsoft) already has a next gen system. Microsoft began developing launch titles for its next system last fall, meaning a new X-Box is either due this year or next year. Once the next X-Box hits the market a new Nintendo and Sony console will follow very quickly.

Now you could argue that this is too soon to be starting the next gen. But Microsoft sales are down 13% YoY and Nintendo is only up one percentage point. Then lets not forget at the beggining of this generation Microsoft said the 360 would have a four year life cycle. Well its year five and the next X-Box isn't here yet.

So with Microsoft being over due on releasing its next console, with major drops in hardware sales and marketshare. It is the perfect time for Microsoft to kick start the next generation. Nintendo will launch its next platform in 2011 end of story and a new Wii model could come out this year but it won't be any GameBoy:Colour it will  be a new colour (Black...etc...etc...) maybe if were lucky some more internal memory. Maybe a smaller size. But HD and a graphical upgrade to the existing hardware is out of the question!

You're making the assumption that Nintendo is intending on releasing a new console in the next 12 to 24 months ... It is entirely possible that Nintendo could be aiming to release their next console after 6 or 7 years; especially if they anticipate that the earliest their competition is considering releasing a console is the end of 2012; so releasing an enhanced console at (roughly) the halfway point is not out of the question.

While higher resolutions do require additional processing power, decades of PC gaming have demonstrated that it is an easy to upgrade existing hardware to achieve higher resolutions as long as games are developed using a standardized API where compatibility is maintained in the new hardware. Being that most Gamecube development used OpenGL as the 3D API, with specific extensions for Gamecube specific features, I would imagine that the same would be true of the Wii.

It doesn’t really matter anyways, the entire reason I mentioned that was as an example of what a company could do to try to encourage existing customers to buy new hardware; and in the process of making this upgraded hardware they could significantly enhance the piracy protection and try to limit the number of games stolen.