@Pyro as Bill
You are so wrong that it is hard to count the ways, but I will do my best to give you a good accounting. There is just no justification for limiting the potential of new hardware to support the limitations of old hardware. The new console is going to address the limitations of the old hardware. The biggest limitation of the old hardware was the control scheme. It simply did not work for a multitude of reasons. Primarily the limited inputs that could be created, and secondarily the convoluted nature of those inputs could leave the player easily fatigued. Not to mention mandatory positioning for so many titles.
Nintendo wants to get games on to their systems that hardcore and core players want to play. You cannot do that without having controls that support the highest level of fidelity. The controls for the Wii are cumbersome, and while you may argue that the controls could pull it off in one way or another. The dance required to do just that actually makes for a less intuitive experience. Perhaps the best counter argument is this. Motion control is not remotely necessary for any game you have played on the Wii. You could pull it all off with a standard controller.
The new control has greater potential, and at the same time offers a good compromise. It will still support the casual play that the predecessor did, but the touch screen alone will allow for deeper mechanics. Without compromising the quality of the experience. You can play any console game on the market with that new controller, and you could actually play games that were not plausible on the consoles previously. There is no reason to come up a better interface only to limit yourself as to what you can do. You are arguing for demolition not progress.
That said your ignoring other aspects altogether. Hopefully the new machine will support greater community interactivity in allowing for people to play games online. Once again the Wii is limited technically in what it can support. Why argue that the next racing game support only eight players when it could support sixteen or thirty two players. Any resources that are dedicated to limitation for the sake of the old machine will only demean the new machine. There just isn't a need for multiple optimized codes. Why have a machine with better graphics if you cannot use those graphics, because the old machine couldn't support that level of visual goodness.
Lastly the novelty of the old interface waned. Which resulted in the old dust magnet cliche. Where people would buy the console play it for a few months, and then shelf the console. The reality is even the ardent Nintendo supporters are still smarting about this, and are going to want assurances that the next console will be able to support all of the huge games that the competition got due to the Wii not just being graphically underpowered but control underpowered. Any hint at all that the new console will be limited would be a major turn off. There just isn't a good argument as to why their own experience should be limited.
Limiting implementation is simply the worst possible idea I have run across in quite some time. This notion has simply never worked in the history of gaming. You simply do not hedge when you move forward. You either move forward to a system with major improvements or you do not. Nintendo learned this the hard way with the good old 64DD which failed epically. The ground between peripheral and new console is simply a no mans land where nothing survives. The new console should in no way be treated as a add on system. That would be the kiss of death. Guaranteeing that the console would never get off of the ground.
I hope nobody reads my comments as a glowing endorsement of the platform or Nintendo. The reality for me is this, and I am not likely to be proven wrong. Nintendo is one of the laziest software developers on the planet, and that is going to eventually catch up with them. Nobody milks like Nintendo, and nobody is as uninspired as Nintendo. They love nothing more then reiterating rather then innovating. They put so little effort in to their titles it is almost tragic. They just copy the same games over and over. That controller has a lot of potential, but I suspect that Nintendo is going to make use of it in the lamest way possible.
I suspect that the majority of the time it will be used as a inventory screen, or to replace a onscreen display. Making the feature entirely superfluous. Seeing as that feature was always a button hit away before. I would also bet you will have a few games that have some furry critter using the screen a cut scene pop up. Such as do a Barrel Roll. In other words I do not see Nintendo using it for anything like a on the fly control of any import. A example of this would be playing a F Zero type game where the screen was used to manually redirect power flow to different systems. For example you are in the last place spot in a straight away. You could manually dump power from shields and thrusters to the rear engines. Thus giving you a major speed boost until you manually dial the whole thing back, or maybe you could dial up the repulsion system on the craft so you could fly over other vehicles.
The design has a lot of promise. I just do not see a lot of hope in Nintendo using it anywhere near its true potential.
