It wouldn't surprise me that all the console R&D teams started work on the next console for their respective companies the second this generation's console was launched.

Aside from maybe updated SKU's and firmware, what else would they be doing with their time?

I hope that the hardware will at least be better than 360 with a good online and DLC.

 - <--- the point

 o  <--- you

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1. Old topic.

2. All console manufacturers begin their next console as soon as they've completed their current one.

3. It's confirmed to support HD resolutions.

4. His hardware quote simply means that people don't like paying $200.00+ for a new console every few years and that they just want to play games and have fun.

I'm pretty sure I do, but he worded it in such a way that implies the Gamecube is the all-aroud best 3D console.

However, even just including Nintendo consoles, the Gamecube was far from 3D perfection

read my other post,

the Gamecube was not the perfection of 3D gaming by any standard.

not funny <--- you

XD stats

he's saying that nintendo perfects whats wrong with the system before it without really adding much. Not that it's the perfect out of all systems.

Actually, I've been saying what O-D-C is saying for years .

He obviously didn't mean that we would never get better 3D graphics than the Gamecube.  Just as he obviously didn't mean the SNES had the best sprites (as many indie PS2 games proved, let alone what we're getting this generation).

What he meant was, twice in a row, we've had one generation that 'introduces' a graphical style, and one that 'perfects' it.  Allow me to explain:

While by no means the first game system, or the first sprite-based game system, the NES introduced the idea of having a world within a game (rather than just 5 sprites running around on a single, black background).  However, with its' limited power, we generally had to make some extrapolations to be drawn into the game.  Many times, our characters went without faces, or we got flickering and slowdown with even a moderate amount of action onscreen.  With Zelda, we had the introduction of the 'videogame overworld'.  It was revolutionary.  However, we had a few green-and-brown dots for a main character, there were no NPCs in the main world (only in shops/caves, etc), there were only a couple of models, and they only said three to four words.  Rarely did you see more than one or two enemy types onscreen at once.  When you reached the side of a screen, it took several seconds to generate the next area.

By contrast, with the SNES, we had easily-recognizable characters when we looked at a sprite.  With Zelda, we could easily tell 'Hey, look, I'm an elf with a sword!'.  It drew you in much more nicely.  There were full towns you could explore, with characters full of personality, sidequests, and character.  There were dungeons you could discover and explore that had NOTHING to do with the storyline, which served only to give you an extra piece of heart or bomb expansion.  Loading the next screen was near-instantaneous.  There were weather effects, tons of enemy types onscreen at once.  Guards, octoroks, evil statues--very varied battles, always.  And then there was a certain screen-filling blue pig at the end, which was breathtaking at the time.  A refinement of all the concepts the NES introduced.

Likewise, the N64 (and the Playstation) introduced the general gaming community to the concept of '3D'.  It had been done before (even on the SNES), but it was the first system to be focussed around it (most Playstation games were sprite-based at the time).  We were able to run around in 360 degrees, and we could do things never before possible in games.  However, there were often tradeoffs.  Often, textures were very blurry, and there was usually little in the way of 'intelligent' enemies, or many objects in the gameworld that were unnessential to the gameplay.  For example, the castle in Mario 64, revolutionary as the game was, was pretty barren.  Every once in a while, you'd run into a toad (who only popped in when you were literally right beside him), but otherwise there was literally no other living thing in the place.

In contrast, the GameCube generation allowed for much, much more.  For a direct comparison to the castle, let's take the island in Mario Sunshine.  We had a large, vibrant, colourful, animated land, with plenty of NPCs who would offer you quests, get pissed when you jumped on them, and just gave it an atmosphere.  Sound familiar?  All this in addition to the more complex, fully-navigable-by-jumping-on-rooftops environment, sewer system that was accessed without any loading, and tons of little secrets hidden in every corner, and you really have 'perfection'.

So you see, he wasn't saying that the GC was the epitome of 3D graphics, but that its' generation was where they took the raw elements introduced previously and refined them into something great. 

I realize he wasn't specifically referring to just graphics, I know it was from an all-around perspective including gameplay etc.

Obviously the Gamecube was an advancement on what was done with the N64, but to call it perfection is a bit of a stretch, especially since his statement makes it seem like Nintendo are the only ones that do this. In your description you use the words "refine" and "improve", which is different then what he is saying and is much better word choice.

It's like what I said in my 2nd post, the way he worded his statement was the problem and I can only infer so much into what he means. Because there are some Fanboys out there that would make those kind of statements and mean them literally.

Iwata announcing this is really not news at all since every console maker starts working on their successor as soon as the current machine is out--if not a bit before. The great part is that Nintendo probably hasn't lost any time in planning for the future, but the success of the Wii and DS probably sent Sony and MS back to the drawing board. That has some humor to it.