Square Enix head predicts new Wii in 2011, says motion 'impact' for Xbox, PlayStation will be 'small'

by Andrew Yoon { Sep 21st 2009 at 5:00AM }

The new motion controllers for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are likely to make big appearances at this year's Tokyo Game Show. While both Microsoft and Sony are attempting to take away some of Nintendo's mindshare with its new controllers, Square Enix head Yoichi Wada believes neither company will be truly successful. "Present game machines already have a lot of functions: they are a network terminal, a Blu-ray or DVD player, and a gaming machine. Compared to these three pillars, the [new motion] controllers are quite limited, so the impact may be small," Wada told the Financial Times.

Wada also believes that the three platforms will start looking more like each other by the year 2011, when he believes Nintendo will release the fabled successor of the Wii. The system will add features found on the PS3/360, and may also introduce a brand new controller. It'll certainly be interesting to see what moves consumers when an HD Nintendo system exists concurrently with motion-enabled Microsoft and Sony systems.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/21/square-enix-head-predicts-new-wii-in-2011-says-motion-impact/

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Thats what S-E & its head Yoichi Wada thinks!

So he's jumped onto the "pachter bandwagon" about a Wii HD it seems!

Also he seems to think NATAL/SONY motion effect will be limited (probably as big as "eyetoy was")

Do you agree with the head of the company that makes one of the best franchise in videogame history?

See. Here's the thing. The notion that Nintendo will release an HD Wii is silly. The notion that Nintendo's next console will be HD is pretty reasonable.

This sounds more like he thinks Nintendo's next console will come out in 2011. That would be a 5 year Wii all on it's own life cycle (with probably another two years of succesful Wii sales on top of it's successor sales. That might be a bit early... But it might not. It all depends on what Nintendo hopes to do with their next console.

As the wii is a record breaking console in terms of sales

wouldn't releasing a "new console" in 2011 be stopping its sales

ALSO he seems to think PS360 will stay while the wii's successor competes with them

thats why I thought he is talking about a "Wii HD"

Stof raises some very good points.

I do think 2011 is too early for the Wii release.

The DS was first officially mentioned in Nov 2003. It was then released in Nov 2004. The Wii was relesed in Nov 2005.

If this pattern is the same. then it will be 2 years from the announcement of the DS2 to the release of the Wii. If the DS2 is announced tomorrow, then the Wii could be released in September 2011. If we don't hear an announcement about the DS2 before Jan 1 2010, then it will be a 2012 release

FF14 for Wii2 confirmed?

Well it's too late in the gen for any super drastic game changers. HD adoption isn't going to suddenly jump to 100%, and people with HDTV's aren't going to suddenly stop enjoying Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Mario Kart, and Natal or the PS3mote aren't going to suddenly change the mind's of 53 million people who voted for Nintendo's motion controls over the past 3 years.

I know it will have been 5 years (6 for the XBox even, yikes), but I still think 2011 seems early for this gen. Now that everybody will have regular controls, motion controls, retail games, new downloadable games, and classic downloadable games, and tons of peripherals (Natal, PS3mote, PSEye, Buzz, Rock Band, Wii Fit, Zapper, Wheel, etc etc), this gen could get stretched out forever. The last time I could name this many peripherals off the top of my head, it was for the uber-successful NES that lasted forever. Because of this, I think the Wii will be a huge competitor next gen, just as the PS2 was this gen.

In fact, Nintendo's gonna have to try pretty damn hard to even steal me away from the Wii. By then Wii games will be so cheap I might just pick up everything I missed instead of picking up a new system and starting all over again.

Rubang - The first thing they need to do is have complete backwards compatability - all Wii disc games, some way to transfer or redownload all your Wiiware/VC purchases. Preferably even GC disc backwards compatability (although that would require gc controller ports and memory card slots, unlike Wii bc, which just requires bluetooth and internal storage, which it will undoubtably have)

Well, that's a simple solution there. They just duct tape 2 Wii's together as they did the Gamecubes.

Wada heck ? =o

you are pretty late