it's at least 4 months before release

I really don't think that Nintendo wants to miss out on blu-ray since it is going to be the next big media format starting next year. And, as I said before, I think Disney wants to support Nintendo. But, Disney also very much wants to support blu-ray and not some dead format like hd-dvd as well which could be the determining factor in Nintendo going with blu-ray.

I very much like the trade in option. It means I could buy Wii now. Play through some of the older games I've missed and games I've been looking forward to -- Mario Galaxy I, Twilight Princess, No More Heroes, RE4 and Okami Wii, MP Collection, No More Heroes, Madworld, Fragile, Muramasa, Silent Hill: Shatttered Memories and then trade it in next year and only have to pay $50 to $100 and get the PS3 / 360 powerful versions of Metroid: Other M, Mario Galaxy 2, FFXIII, New Zelda HD, Epic Mickey, and KH3 when released.

This info goes along very well with Miyamoto's statement that 2010 would be when they would start looking at Wii HD and keeping up with current technologies. And it also goes along very well with Square's statement about their plans for Wii in 2011.

Also, I think Nintendo can support having two consoles on the market even though I would expect the new one to be fully backwards compatable. One of the two would be more for the casuals and one for the core because these expanded market type owners don't seem too interested in buying games beyond Wii Sports and Wii Fit, and Nintendo basically did something similar with nes and snes for much of the snes early to mid-lifetime.

The traded in consoles could be refurbished to go back out to the casuals, then Wii Sports 3 and Wii Fit 3 could be released a year later than Wii 2 encouraging the casuals to make the trade-up.

Interesting.

But if rumors are true, those websites will create problems for Nintendo. You never unveal an information that concurrency can use against you.

Wii 2 with those Specs and Nintendo would have me back again. Zelda in HD wow or Mario I wonder how the game Design would change.

It would perfectly fit next to my PS3.

And because of the Bluray Drive Nintendo wanted ALWAYS just one thing. They wanted to block piracy. And even with all those Proprietary formats it has not worked especially on the WII.

And thats why they are going the Bluray way. Maybe not exactly the same thing but based on Bluray. They use DVD too and DVD is as much a Sony Format as Bluray is. Nintendo dont cares about that.

And why they are NOT going the HD DVD way. It would be a logical step it seems because the Format is dead and the Piracy would be zero. Nintendo want a pirate free platform like the PS3 and HD DVD would work perfectly for it. But the problem is the Costs. Yes the Costs. HD DVD is dead noone is producing those Drives soon (or maybe even now). They will do a lot of research on Bluray drives and they will be manufactured cheaper and cheaper. And because the Volume is bigger for Bluray drives compared to HD DVD Drives it will reduce costs too.

But the other thing is. I dont know too much about it but I could imagine that they have to look for a Company which manufactures HD DVD Drives just for them and that would increase costs too.

They can use smaller Blurays like the GC had smaller DVD like Discs.

I am sure it wont come out until the last quarter of 2011. But in this point of time they can have Hardware 2-3 times more powerful then the PS3 and still be cheap and small. It wouldnt alienate the old costumers. The WII could still be there and the WII 2 would be an attack to the PS3/360 audience. Fully Compatible to old WII Games.

December 2011 would the Wii be 5 years on the market it would be a good time to release a new Console.

Just a quick look at the Wii sales:

Jan6th - Oct 4th (Q1-3) 2008: 13,614,978
Jan4th - Oct 3rd (Q1-3) 2009: 9,937,184

3.7 Mio down thats a lot. And the successors come even if the old console sell good. And Nintendo is never going to wait until WII is under 100k a Week. They
need growth. The Wii is declining and 2008 was the peak year. December 2011 fits perfect.
2010 is maybe to early but it could be that Nintendo wants to counter the Competition which will offer Motion Control the main selling point of WII (except the Nintendogames)

Until now it was like this:

WII Motion Control
PS3: HD
Xbox360: HD

2010 it will be like this:

Wii Motion Control
PS3 Motion Control+HD
Xbox360 Motion Control+HD

Nintendo introduced the Motion Controls to be competitiv but maybe they are afraid that the WII couldnt be as attractiv as it was because the Xbox360 and PS3 would be cheap 199-249 seems possible. And offer better Graphics and Motion Controls.

So Nintendo make the WII 2 and this could kill the Competition. Until NOW they are market leader but have still the slightly smaller market compared to HD Consoles. Maybe Nintendo wants it all.

It would be good to see a dominant market leader which gets all the games.
Together with full WII/GC Library plus WII Ware plus Graphics Power, Motion Controls. Nintendo would have everything. Some Improvements here and there they are unbeatable atleast with the PS3 or 360. A WII 2 would be a good step. And even if PS3 and 360 successors came the Graphic difference would never be so huge like it is today. Graphics is maybe something half of the market dont need. But the other (bigger) half wants graphics.

And I am sure that the people which have now a WII want HD. Maybe not now but if they dont want it all. They could keep their WII forever and Nintendo WII would be the last Console for Nintendo because it would be senseless to make another one with improved graphics.

Yeah, that snowboarding game from the N64.

OT: This is an interesting read, but with all rumors, they must be taken with a grain of salt. Even if it's the same source that posted the Wii's specs just before release. Wait and see before jumping to conclusions...

@Naraku
If wiihd had 1080 snowboarding I'd buy it lol

I'm serious boggled by the number of people who are just making very bad assumptions about Nintendo. Even when Nintendo is plainly telling everyone their direction.

Nintendo will use the most cheapest, but durable and efficient tech out there. That's why Wii uses DL-DVD. The drive costs about $5-10. I have not doubt that Nintendo would choose to use BR if BR drive was $5-10. Why wouldn't Nintendo use BRD. Well Nintendo won't specifically stay away from it. In the world of business Nintendo doesn't see BRD==Sony. BRD==Medium provided by a very large conglomerate. Wii2 won't use HD-DVD mainly because the drive manufacturer plants are being dismantled since Hitatch? backed out. This would make HD-DVD more expensive.

Nintendo isn't missing out on a thing by not incorporating BRD now. They barely used DVD with the GC and certainly aren't pushing DL-DVD games since most use 4.2gb and even then most games tick in less of actual content. Mediums alone don't make games successful. Since if that were the case PS3 would have 50m sold while Nintendo would have 20m.

BTW awesome conspiracy theory, but this is the world of business efficiency, not shooting yourself in the foot. While I'm sure business get caught up in mini conspiracies all the time doing such a move would be counter productive to expanding gaming.

As for Epic Mickey on the Wii. I suspect it has to do with Userbase and the fact it's got already established controls.

seem possible

      But unless Nintendo had the blu-ray movie feature, then they would never fully be able to stamp out PS3 because when PS3 is cheap and has the added benefit of dvds being off the market and all the best movies available only blu-ray, that keeps them as a competitor with something Wii doesn't offer.

Also, when Nintendo went with cartridges on N64, cds weren't the dominant media type -- they had only been used on obscure consoles and hadn't lived up to their true potential.  Pretty much the same thing with dvd versus the gc disc.  DVD was still in its infancy when they did that.  This gen when dvd was the dominant media, they went with dvd. 

They do have history on their side in this, but i think 2010 is precluded, considering that we already have at least a few Wii games that are tentative for 2011, and games that are definitely late 2010 at the earliest (like Zelda, and Epic Mickey)