Don't forget the Wii was announced at E3 2005 the year after DS launched in late 2004 early 2005. Then that E3 (2005) Nintendo announced project Revolution. With the controller being unvieled at TGS 2005. I suspect Nintendo may do this again, avoid taking thunder away from 3DS while re-assuring consumers a new console is on the way.

Of course I could be wrong Nintendo might do a big unvieling which I would be all over. But I'm pretty positive that the new console will be announced formally this year whether at E3 or later in the year. I still predict a winter launch in 2012.

As I said in another thread a redesign is highly unlikely.

Why? Well the Wii is already about as small as they could make it, memory wise it could use more internal memory but Nintendo constantly says that the Wii has sufficient memory. What about HD, Nintendo has already said the next console will feature HD they have also downplayed the idea of an HD update for Wii. What more can Nintendo do to redesign the Wii? The thing is already a beautiful machine and their isn't much Nintendo could do to improve on it.

Don't forget the Wii was announced at E3 2005 the year after DS launched in late 2004 early 2005. Then that E3 (2005) Nintendo announced project Revolution. With the controller being unvieled at TGS 2005. I suspect Nintendo may do this again, avoid taking thunder away from 3DS while re-assuring consumers a new console is on the way.

Of course I could be wrong Nintendo might do a big unvieling which I would be all over. But I'm pretty positive that the new console will be announced formally this year whether at E3 or later in the year. I still predict a winter launch in 2012.

A redesign doen`s necessarily mean making it smaller. It could be the same size but with a different look, different packaging and so on.
And if it came with a new price at the same time it would really help elevate sales.

I actually thought the Wiimote was revealed first! :D
Still, what might hold off an announcement is the fact that Nintendo doesn`t a new console the same way it needed a new console to replace they dying Gamecube. Wii is still selling very well and an announcement would only bring  forth a premature death. Wii still has potential to sell a lot more millions.
That`s why i think Wii2 will only be revealed next year with a release in late 2012.

Did the PlayStation 2 die when PS3 got announced?, how about the SNES? Not all consoles die as soon as the next one is announced. GameCube died because lets face it it was slowly dying for years, N64 also failed to be a massive success.

However GBA sold for another year or so after DS was launched. I expect the Nintendo Wii will continue to sell long after an announcement at this years E3. Infact I bet it will continue selling well even after Nintendo's next console launches. Give it a price cut and some more games each year and I bet it'll keep selling another 3-4 years!

It`s not the announcement per se that will harm Wii, it`s the actual release on the market of Wii 2 - if sooner than needed - that will harm Wii. That`s what i meant above, sorry.

A premature death doesn`t mean it will die instantly or close to that. What i meant was that it`s shelf life will be reduced a lot if Wii 2 arrives too soon. And with that i mean cutting on potential Wii sales: not giving a chance for a full effect of a substantial price cut, a last batch of great games. If Wii 2 arives to soon, in my opinion, incentives to rise Wii sales could be damaged and therefore, sales will be lost.
The PS2 didn`t die, as i see it, for 2 reasons: it had a library of great games - which the Wii does not have - to still attract gamers and PS3, in the beggining, wasn`t all that attractive for PS2 players to jump to it. See PS3`s sales in Japan and the US for example after it was launched.
Had the PS3 start better and PS2 would be in a worst situation by now.

Don`t really know about the Snes but since a lot of people talk about it`s great library of games and seeing how at first all Nintendo 64 had was Mario 64 and later, Mario Kart 64, i would presume that led to a situation where there really wasn`t a reason for a massive transition from the Snes to the N64.

I agree with you that Wii will still sell despite Wii 2 being on the market, the question is if Wii 2 will cut or not into Wii sales if it comes out too soon while there are things that can elevate Wii sales.

I don't think it will by much. Best case scenerio the Wii2 launches in winter 2012. If the Wii continues to decline in sales at the rate it has over the last year then I don't think their will be much to loose. Keep in mind Wii is still outselling PS2. I think if the Wii gets down to 99$ for the launch of the next platform in 2012 alot of people will buy Wii's despite the launch of the new hardware.

Worst case scenerio in winter 2012 the Wii will fall to PS2 levels which still isn't half bad. I think the Wii will slow down tremendously over the next year or two whether or not the Wii2 gets released. The question is will Nintendo flog and milk the Wii till its completely slaughtered or will they come in before the Wii is dead and release the next console?