UPDATED SuperChunk's ideas on Nintendo's next console.

[ilovetogame]

i gotta disagree heavily with Superchunk's idea for the controllers. sorry for the long post:

first off i really hope that these HD screen controller rumors are false. that would add lots of cost and needed battery power and from what i can tell would primarily only be good because you could play multiplayer games right on your controller instead of having to split of the tv screen a bunch of times into your little quadrant (this could make it easy to have much more than 4 players playing on one system at once). But overall that just sounds like a terrible idea and would go completely against the simple, intuitive path that nintendo generally takes. and the reason why a touchscreen on the controller would be gimmicky as well and not worth it is because when you play console games you are looking up at the screen, not down at whats in your hand like when you play handheld systems. so forcing people to be constantly looking from the tv down to the controller to view the two different screens would be stupid.

secondly, you say wii would just keep their current motion plus controllers as their motion control for the new system. this would be a huge fail! I expect Nintendo to take 3 big leaps from the Wii to its successor. These three things are 1) fully integrated and intiutive online system (i.e. MUCH better than what the wii has). 2) Big jump in horsepower as the new system needs to be significantly more powerful than ps360 so that in comparison to the other next gen systems it will basically be the graphics equivalent of ps2 vs. the more powerful gamecube and xbox. so a bit less more powerful but still close enough to port games without much trouble, just dumb down some of the effects a bit. 3) A big advancement in Motion Control. This third thing is crucial.

Lets face it, while the wii controller is awesome and its motion control is cool, it is a very basic motion control device. the wii is the first motion control system, so thats expected. even with the motion plus it still isn't advanced enough to really let gamers do what they want with motion controls. plus, now you have Kinect that has a different type of motion control using camera recognition and capture technology. now without a controller there device is very limited. so the obvious conclusion is to combine the two types of motion control and advance them.

I see the Wii failing in the hearts of gamers and probably in the marketplace if it doesn't seriously advance the motion controller as well as combining with it with a kinect-sytle system. That way you have pure 3D tracking of the controller plus tracking of the whole body. Also I think both the left and right handed controller will have IR pointers (think awesome dual-wielding first person shooting!) The wii did a great job ushering in motion control as the new way to play games, but when the wii first came out all those cool fantasies we had of what motion control could offer never really found its way into reality with the Wii cuz the tech wasn't good enough. Now the motion tech should be affordable and without making the shift to advanced motion control the next Nintendo system will falter badly.

If the next system does these 3 things it will be golden. the final and ultimate thing for nintendo to do with their next system is to make the motion controllers in such a way so that the left and righthanded controllers can be connected in the middle to form a standard-like controller. this solves the problem of motion vs. non-motion games, it would mean that even games that are better played with the standard controller could use motion in a limited way (like SMG), this additionally solves the problem of having to offer two different types of controllers for gamers which would be very unattractive (who wants to buy 6 or 7 extra controllers to be able to play all their games 4-player), and you don't have to resort to some overly complicated, over clunky, and overly priced HD screen controller. the main innovation nintendo needs to come up with next gen is advanced kinect wii style motion controls with a combinable controller.

 

 

(just to give an idea of what this ultimate controller could be like: imagine a controller that is half way between the Wiimote and the nunchuck in terms of how it fits the hand, obviously one fitted for the left hand and one fitted for the right. shorter like the nunchuck, but with the IR pointer at the end. towards the top right on the lefthanded controller and towards the top left for the righthanded one the controller extends out on the side maybe an inch and a half with a sleek bulge. this might seem awkward but the protuberence would just be an extra part on the inside of the controller that wouldn't effect the way you hold it or any of the button placement. have these two bulges on the inside of the controller be connectable to form a pretty normal looking standard controller. they could connect electronically there too so that you can charge them together.  button placement on the lefthanded controller could be similar to the nunchuck: analog stick, maybe two buttons on the back. the righthanded controller would have two main buttons on the front instead of the Wii's one A Button, and maybe another two on the back. this way you get two face buttons, and four trigger buttons which would still have the simple button design that nintendo wants with just two face buttons but for standardly controlled games there are four extra trigger buttons. and analog stick would probably bit to the lower left of the two buttons which would make the right handed controller a little thicker than the lefthanded one probably. and a start/home button perhaps below the analog stick on the left controller. also include a better mic than what is in the wiimote and have rumble feedback. the perfect controller)