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The Next Microsoft Console for Sure. I believe Sony will join the game to late to be great competitor...

 Say what????  MKWii NOT a racing game Metroid Prime NOT a FPS??

what the hell are you smoking?? really??

Now I have heard(read) everything. 

Ok i personally agree,but this isn't like the PS2 or PS1 generation(s).There are so many factors that can elude to why the PS3 isn't on top and why the Wii is,not just some generational skip blah blah(no offense).

His assessment that Metroid Prime is not a First Person Shooter is actually fair being that Retro and Miyamoto both claimed that it was supposed to be a First Person Adventure game when it was new; in a similar fashion it is fair to call Battalion Wars a battlefield Real Time Strategy game because the RTS elements seem to be the primary focus of the game.

His defence of his claim that Mario Kart not being a racing game (essentially) eliminates games like Extreme-G, F-Zero, Wipeout, Tony Hawks Downhill Jam, and 1080 Snowboarding (as well as everything that is not a automobile racing sim) from being a racing game ... Personally, I aways assumed that the 'Racing' element in a game made it a 'Racing' game; I guess it turns out that you have to be able to shift gears in order for it to be a racing game (I feel sorry for anyone who wants racing elements in an olympics game because speed skaters and runners don't have gears).

It will be interesting.

First off, the next Wii will be full blown HD, Nintendo has already said that. The limit of the state of the art in television will level that playing field. Probably Nintendo won’t push the processing power as far in order to keep a good price point, smaller, cooler running and high reliability.

They will have full backward comparability through the Game Cube offering a very large library plus VC, Wii Ware and possibly some version of home brew. I think people tend to forget that the Wii’s perfect GC compatibility makes up for a lot of the weakness in their current 3rd part library. A decision to NOT support full BC is a HUGE mistake.

They will stick with but refine motion control, the balance board will be a no-brainer accessory and they will add head/eye movement. All controls will quicker, more response and more precise but without sacrificing simplicity and intuitive movements.

Online gaming will be offered at two levels. A more open version with chat requiring proof of age/ parental OK. A level much like the current one designed for greater safety for younger children.

If they execute all of these things well; and Nintendo usually does. They will start out with most new and casual gamers used to their system and owning Wii libraries making up a huge customer base which will be theirs to lose.

To compete with them Sony and Microsoft will have to decide whether to cater to the “hardcore” gamer and hope that not too many defect. Or they must come up with something very innovative, new and so compelling that it will disrupt the market and steal that huge customer base from Nintendo. That’s a tall order. If either company pulls it off, it will most likely be Sony because they are better suited to make some huge leap into the future. Microsoft does not usually innovate on that scale.

My guess is that baring a mistake by Nintendo, they are going to be hard to beat.

I see all the comments and I see the logic you people have however I stay firm on my statement about mario kart...

All those racing games have to do with speed and cornering hence they are racing games...they don't need gear changes to be considered racing, but they have to have gameplay that is centers around driving the best and fastest. The goal is to get from point a to point b the fastest... Sure Wipeout, extreme G etc have powerups as well...but they don't take away form the racing goal.

Mario Kart Wii has an extremely unbalanced gameplay where powerups matter more than racing, cornering or driving skill. Old mario Karts did not have this issue...

So this game comes down to who gets what powerups and who shoots the other guy down. Not to mention the game modes which are all about shooting turtles and have nothing to do with racing...

In any case, collecting powerups...shooting turtles...that sounds a lot like another type of game to me...I see mariokart as platformer on rails.

@Disolitude: Well then, after your rabbid round of Wii bashing, do you feel better?

Please, realize that when you are the only one standing by a flawed point, it mostly means that you are WRONG.
Mario Kart is a racer like it or not, one that is far more popular than the ones you named.

I can't see how all the sequels on the Wii are carbon copies either.
You need to calm down a bit, throwing a remote control against the wall is not a good idea.

The balance in Mario Kart is far from perfect, but most of the people I see complaining about the lack of balance are also those who have not yet mastered the game ...

In a lot of ways it reminds me of MMO games (like World of Warcraft) where on a daily basis you see someone post about how unballanced a class is after they get completely owned. My favourite example of this was when I was an enchanter in DAoC (I was the only enchanter past level 30 on my server because of how "gimped" they were) and I beat a Thane (the uber class of the time) because he tried to kill my pet before killing me; he made a posting on the forum and even one of mythic's representitives laughed at him.

Certainly, Nintendo could work on the balance and try to limit the likelyhood of 4 blue-shells appearing right after eachother, but Mario Kart is still a game where the most skilled player tends to win the most often based on their understanding of the racing rules in the game.

@HappySqurriel

Yeah, I agree. I am not arguing the game still takes skill and is not fun. I like the game... Just that what nintendo produced with MKWII does not require racing skill anymore...

To reply on topic, I think this gen will cause a lot of deviations from the norm and that all 3 companies will deviate from each other even more the next gen. We will have 3 different products that will each have their own strengths... The it will be up to the consumer to decide.