I still think an announcement will take place at E3, with release being in the 1st half of 2012

I think how well the 3DS Q1 2011 launch goes could be a deciding factor for Nintendo whether to launch Wii 2 in Q1 2012 or holiday season 2012.

I think they wont to wait for the ps3 and 360 to lose some of there steam before releasing a entirly new home consol. Its just a bit to risky at the moment imo

You say that as if the Wii has any 3rd party support at all :P

I don't see that the same way.  That's an investor's briefing and Iwata has to explain why there's no Wii2 announced NOW despite falling Wii sales.      

What he's not saying is the expected hit from Kinect/Move which of course no one yet knows but you can bet they'll be watching closely.   They've known about it for at least 1yr, 2 if they follow rumours.  So you know they have contingency plans.

If Wii is still selling well in the first 1/4 of 2011 (comparible to this year) then they'll likely wait, if it's down significantly and Move and Kinect are showing traction beyond initial 'oh wow cool' / holiday sales, then I'd expect they'd have Wii2 ready for holidays 2011.    Mind you, they had 3DS ready for holiday 2010 and we all know what happened there so....

I could be wrong, but I think that Nintendo's launch strategy with the 3DS may be an indicator that Nintendo doesn't want to announce a system too long before they release it; and with their next home console Nintendo may deny its existance until it is 3 to 6 months away from launch.

Hypothetically speaking, suppose what would happen if 6 weeks before E3 Nintendo announced their next system with a teaser video (like the 'Revolution' Teaser from TGS 2005), at E3 they ended up having it fully playable with several games from all third party publishers that were all near completion, and released the system 6 weeks to 3 months later? In many ways, if you could get third party publishers on board with this strategy you could dominate the news cycle leading up to the console's launch; and maximize the impact of marketing money spent.

Why do I bring this up? Because it is entirely possible that Nintendo could release a system in 2011 or 2012 and would deny it up until they announce their next system.

Surpise, surprise. When talking about th PS3 having a 10 years plan, everyone instantly believes, but when they say Wii 2 won't be released there are a lot of doubters.

I still firmly believe Nintendo will announce their next gen system in 2011. Iwata never said in the statement that a new console wouldn't come in 2012 he never even said one wouldn't come in 2011. He simply stated Nintendo isn't bound to the five year life cycle and left alot of inuendos hinting a release is unlikely.

But keep in mind he has to satisfy investors and the fact he never flat out denied a console release in 2011 shows its definatly possible. Reggie and Iwata are renowned for denying new consoles exist until they are right about to launch. I remember Reggie the day before DS:Lite was announced issued an official statement saying no new model was in development and no new model was coming, he said it was just rumours. Then the next day Iwata announced the Lite.

Their job entails deception. If they came out and said yes we plan to launch 3DS in March, 3DS Lite in 2013. Wii2 in 2011/12. Then a bundle in 2013. They would be giving competitors and investors too much info. If Nintendo confirmed every rumour or denied every rumour out of the gate they would have no cards up their sleeve.

Wii2 is likely already done or nearly done development. I would say internal teams already have dev kits and are working on software. Nintendo is always a step ahead of the game they plan like 5-10 years in advance. Sure they may alter their plans but they are never behind and always have contingency plans.

I find it sort of odd that DS is now stable while Wii who's sales are dropping YoY is still growing. I think Iwata is waiting to see what his competitors do before he announces Wii2. If Kinect and Move fail and Wii rebounds then maybe winter 2012. If Move and Kinect succeed and Wii continues to loose market share then a spring 2012 release date is more then plausable.

In the end the next Nintendo console could be used to kill off PS360 stopping them dead in their tracks. Not to mention Nintendo being first to market could be beneficial. I think Iwata wants to see if Next-Box and PS4 are on their way. Nintendo has informants and I'm sure they know Microsoft and Sony both have consoles ready as well.

Its all about the timing!

2012 or 2013 is reasonable, it will allow to offer a Wii2 twice or thrice as powerful as a PS3 (Nintendo isn't a power hog, but Wii is anyway more than twice as powerful as a PS2) at a reasonable price and being profitable from the start. Also, Nintendo needs to observe how successful Kinect will be on a long enough period, to decide if including also hands-free camera based controls will be necessary or not. BTW, next gen Nintendo will have to be sure to release a console with the same amount of RAM as competitors, to avoid any unnecessary difficulty for porting 3rd party multiplats. RAM is already very cheap now, but anyway, not releasing too early will help to furtherly reduce this particular cost. And finally, the bigger Wii's user base will be when Wii2 is released, the most even reluctant 3rd parties will find appealing to support it. By Q3 2012, Wii total sales will surely exceed 100M, nobody will be able to ignore it.

Because both are lies. PS3 won't go any longer than 7 years without replacement at the absolute most, with 6 being the more likely one, and likely Wii 2 is coming, but it's obviously in Nintendo's interest to deny it