Wii 2 (Project Café)

Rumours are abound that Nintendo will announce a successor to the Wii at this year's E3, with claims that dev kits were doled out months ago, a planned Wii price cut and a dearth of big titles next year to reinforce them. Let us examine the reported features, courtesy of this handy article...

Hardcore gaming

As anticipated, all signs point to Ninty tempting back their old crowd, while retaining as much of the new casual base as possible. HD specs are on the billing with hardware "significantly more powerful than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360". Tech specs have been bandied about, but there's nothing conclusive. However...

Return of the waggle

These two seem paradoxical, but the suggestion is that Nintendo are returning not just to motion control, but also to touch. Reliving the glory days of over-elaborate controllers, it's been reported that it will include a built-in HD touch screen, as well as a camera that acts as a sensor bar and a host of triggers, D pads and silly buttons. The Dreamcast tried a controller screen thing before, if I recall. Didn't go so well. :p

But with the certain expense of any such controller, the suggestion has been that it could be a handheld console in its own right. As 3D is widely seen as a short-term gimmick, this could be the real future of the company's handheld division. Considering that it'd also need upgraded wireless tech to transmit HD content, and the limitations of in-game touch control, downloadable games for the device seem a logical progression.

Seems too ridiculous to be true, but this is coming from numerous sources. :|

Compatibility

It should be backwards compatible to at least the Wii, which makes sense, and possibly still the Gamecube. It will, however, apparently also have an architecture similar to the Xbox, making it easy for both established and indie developers to get involved. Not quite sure how they will change the architecture and keep all of that, but maybe I'm reading too much into it. It's definitely a significant departure from the Wii, though: they're apparently planning to change the name.


Summary: HD, motion-control, new gimmick (possibly a new handheld) and proper games. Note that this topic is essentially a place-holder for the actual announcement, but most of this isn't beyond the realm of possibility for Nintendo, so I thought I'd open it to discussion. And if anyone can pull it off...

Sounds sweet if it is true. While better games is welcome, I hope they dun go over the top with it; one of the charms with Nintendo is their classic games, ones that focus more on fun and innovative gameplay rather than simply overly graphical shooters like Sony and Microsoft (games that still never looks as good as their PC counterpart anyway).

Though I'd welcome a step away from the casual games (I mean, it's supposed to be a gaming console, not a exercise machine) and back towards the epic adventures of the past (Mario, Meteoroid, Zelda-ish games etc.).

Also, I hope the price tag won't peak as much as for other consoles >_>

Mario and Luigi.

They better not mass release a bunch of sports/fitness games this time.

You know, when an article mentions two D-pads on a single controller, it makes the entire thing sound like bullshit.

Wii successor rumors - Rockstar already in possession of dev kit, GTA 5 on the way

Oddly enough, the source for this rumor is 01net, which has a history of being very spot-on with their rumors. They had the NGP specs detailed before they were announced, and they also broke the next round of Wii successor rumors. Of course, we don't know if those are true, but we should find out at E3!

- Rockstar has a dev kit
- working on GTA V (which is sure to hit PS3/360 as well)
- hoping to have it available at launch
- system still looking at a late 2012 launch (June)
- expect tech demos and some games shown at E3


http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=156124

http://gamekyo.com/newsfr40670_01net...012-gta-v.html


Interesting rumour is interesting


*Edit*
RUMOR motherload - Wii successor third and first party support, E3 show details, 3DS games on the way


Another big round of rumors coming from a source that outed the Rockstar rumor before 01.net did, so take that for what it's worth.

- Square Enix, Capcom, Sega, Konami, Activision, Rockstar/Take Two, Electronic Arts, Namco and Ubisoft all have development kits
- each company has at least one game in the works
- Nintendo really reaching out to third parties
- Nintendo may hold back 1st party games at launch to help promote third party offerings
- StarFox for the Wii successor is in early development stages
- storage solution at work that should do away with the issues third parties had on Wii
- revamped downloadable service
- much-loved FPS getting a 'port' to 3DS
- big focus on 3DS at E3 showing
- Nintendo considering launching Skyward Sword around the same time Wii's successor hits
- Hideo Kojima approached concerning Wii successor
- Resident Evil game being worked on for Wii successor
- Retro working on a Wii successor game, not related to Metroid

http://gameolosophy.com/consoles/wii...#ixzz1K0495cMH
http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=156206

Stuff and things:

>Shigsy confirms new hardware, “[on E3 announcement] Please wait. Be patient until we decide.”
>IGN speculate some more on exact tech, still more powerful than PS3
>as big as the 360, resembling a SNES
>may be called the 'Stream'
>rumoured $350-$400
>likely launch Spring 2012

I was never into the first wii due to the lack image, sound, and game quality. But if what your saying is true it sounds like a improvement. But one thing i know that They have to get rid of are those fucking stupid friend codes. these thing that truly sank the wii for me and I'm sure for many people are these damn friends codes. But either way i cant see what improvements they have in store for it. And hope it ends up way better then their current expensive paperweight

I'm still trying to understand why is the project's name "Project Cafe".

Casual but expensive? :P The codename is another rumour, to be fair, but it has held fast.

Stronger than the PS3 and the Xbox 360.

Of course, if they didn't, I'd whack Nintendo, but then the next gen comes out..

Better graphics than the PS3 and 360 were by no means a certainty. I mean, Sony and Microsoft are holding their successors off for at least a couple more years simply because no one has a TV that can support any better graphics than the current gen yet. I suspect it will be at least three years before beyond HD comes to the fore in a big way.

Better graphics doesn't mean higher resolutions than HD. Most console games are seriously lacking a lot of the stuff that makes them look great on PC. The majority of console games run at 720P on PS3 and 360, with quite a few even lower than that. There's little to no AA/AF and the textures and detail over all is way down low on a lot of games.

That's the ballpark I was in; it may be more powerful than the current gen rivals, but with the limits of TVs and console pricing, it can't get much more advanced.

But I didn't realise that a significant proportion of console games don't run at 1080p. Makes sense looking at PC graphics, and having played games at both resolutions, though. Is that the processor, graphics, or what? Most rendering issues from earlier games have been ironed out now, at least.

From what I've read the greatest thing holding back consoles is the lack of ram/vram. Both the PS3 and 360 have 512MB of ram, with each handling that ram in a different fashion. I don't even think most notebook laptops carry that low of ram nowadays.

But at the same time, do consoles have to run much more than the game? Obviously you have the 'OS', with its menus and music and what have you, but there must be considerably less strain on it. I'm not doubting you, I mean my two year old laptop has 4gb (and this successor will reportedly have that exact same 512mb, according to IGN), but it a) can't be that expensive to put more in and b) couldn't they let you use a flash drive or something to expand it?

There is definitely considerably less strain on a console's ram than a computer and the way it handles what it uses the ram resource for, I just noticed that it was a complaint by a few developers from time to time. There's also a article on Kotaku I believe that sites these complaints from devs I believe.

The Wii2's ram, if we believe these rumors, I'm sure will be much better than the PS3's and 360's ram since it's not 5 years old. I'm sure it's clock speed and what have you will be higher. It's ram will certainly be the superior despite being the same amount to the PS3 and 360's.

Consoles mostly rely on the CPU to do the game stuff, but it certainly doesn't help that the console GPUs are based on such old GPU architecture. The PS3 is the 7800 series from nVidia and the 360 is the X-1400 from ATI I believe. I'm not familiar with ATI, but if we go with nVidia that's the 8000 series, 9000 series, 200, 400 and 500 series cards that have came out since.

Also, console makers aren't too keen on the idea on the consumer being able to upgrade their products. The console makers make the majority of their money from the sales. To give the consumer the ability to make their machines more powerful would mean that some would hold off on buying the next iteration. They could just make proprietary hardware for the consumer to buy if they want to upgrade, but I'm not sure if they would be willing to invest in making the line of products needed to do that.

I've heard it'll use 2008 tech to make more profit, in which case it'd be just as disappointing as the Wii.

But my sources are terrible, just... TERRIBLE

I quite agree.

PS3 and 360 run the games in sub-HD, it is only just being stretched to give the illusion (and crispness) of HD.

But if you connection your computer to a HDTV, and go play, say, Bad Company 2 in real 1080p and then compare it to the console versions.. you get the point.

It's been formally announced by Nintendo for a 2012 release, and it will be playable at E3. :D

http://uk.kotaku.com/5795241/nintendo-confirms-wii-successor
http://uk.kotaku.com/5795285/nintendo-wants-new-approach-with-wii-successor