@bengax2

Yeah, I've gotten it already! I've known this stuff for a while, but I still whole heartedly believe that sony will make another high-tech system.

We are at the point where both sony and ms will want to make a budget system like N did. However, whoever does that leaves the HC market up for grabs.
If both of them do it, then I wouldn't be surprised if N has two models being worked on, one a budget model like the current wii, and one "hi-tech wii" which would take over the HC markets if ms and sony go mainstream(lower price). (and yes mainstream=lower price)

Nintendo has a lot of options right now, and can do a lot of things.
I have always been a big fan of nintendo even though a lot of you think I'm not from my wii=toy threads.
I am just not impressed with their current business model and games lineup, a man can take only so much cartoon!
Gamecube I adored, and i thought it was an amazing systems if only for it's portability, which as you can see was very much a precursor to the wii.
I think I will buy a wii2 when it comes out, because, hopefully, the wii2 will:
have HC support, portable, hi-tech(flash memory maybe?), innovative, cheaper, better dev support, comparable to the other systems.

These reasons I just listed are exactly why sony and ms are going to have big boxes again.
I expect a ps4 looking much like ps3 in terms of hardware, but at around 300-400$, and an xbox720 looking a lot like 360 while following their sega-genesis upgradable business model to reduce costs.

I'm telling you people, besides the 3 Wii hating companies (Konami, SE, Ubisoft) who release nothing more than shovelware, spin-offs, delayed games, ports, etc. and Capcom to a certain extent, every other company will undoubtedly support the Wii. People here seem to forget that Wii was thought to be a failure by every single developer, and that is showing right now with the lack of 3rd party games. It's obvious every dev besides those 4 I named are already making Wii games, but they have to finish their HD projects first.

Don't doubt the Wii, it's not been even 2 years yet since it launched and about 1 year since it became a fact that the Wii would win this gen. Games will arrive next year, believe it or not.

And this will in fact help the next Wii, since devs would be very idiotic not to have great games ready for the launch of the successor of the most successful home console so far.

I don't see Nintendo going down that path even though it seems like a good idea.  First, they are unlikely to sink much R&D cost into something that is unlikely to be released (I assume you mean they develop two completely different consoles with only one being released depending on the circumstances at the time).  Secondly, Nintendo seems quite adverse to any technology that isn't theirs (e.g. not even puting 5.1 audio in Wii even though it probably won't cost more than a dollar more) and thirdly Nintendo does not have the support of other money making divisions so it has to have a business structure where it releases its consoles at a profit and at an affordable price.

Nintendo does not have a very good relationship with third party developers. Back in the  N64, GC days Nintendo had very little support from outsiders and it had to rely on selling its first party games.

@Espresso

Not in the SNES days...that system had tons of great 3rd party titles .

That's probably why he only mentions the 64 and GC in his post.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. i mean, one base console. Then depending on the circumstances, they put in a better processor, graphics card, harddrive, faster dvd rom or what have you.

to expand: ninty holds all the cards right now. I really think it is up to them whether or not they want to be in the vg market by themselves if they so decide.

@WOW

He edited his post after my message.His initial post mentioned the SNES as well.

It's not just HD, it's the fact that X-box and PS3 have very similar system specs and it is relatively easy to develop a big, blockbuster title for both systems (and PC, of course). 3rd Party developers are always going to go for the biggest audience, and they don't have a console preference. If they can get a larger audience by releasing on multiple platforms, then they will. The problem with the Wii this time is that it is hard to develop a multi-platform game for it. Much different system specs and, of course, the new controller makes it a hard bet.

As for the next Wii, I think if they stay with what MS and Sony are doing, they will get 3rd party devs... if they deviate, as they almost always do, then I'm afraid it's going to be the same as it is this generation.