It seems like every six months ago a new Nintendo Wii 2 rumor starts making the rounds touting a new full HD gaming console is just around the corner. And why not? Nintendo president Satoru Iwata last year confirmed that the company was “studying and developing” the next Wii console to investors. Not to mention existing Wii consoles are beginning to collect dust and new software announcements – especially from first-party Nintendo – are slowly drying up.
The last big Wii 2 rumor came in August 2010 with promises of a full high definition Nintendo console with a Blu-ray player (licensed by Sony) coming in late 2011. That rumor was based off of an October 2009 report that first introduced the Blu-ray drive but had also promised Wii 2 would be in stores by last year.
This new rumor report comes from ZeldaInformer.com and adds a new twist to the previous ones. While the report goes on to list all the specs that have been printed in previous reports like the Blu-ray drive, built-in projector and quad-core processor, it claims that Nintendo will unveil the Wii 2 in June at the annual E3 conference. The rumor report might carry more weight if it didn’t reference those unlikely specs but it is intriguing to ponder if you pull back and look at the bigger picture.
There’s a big lack of announced upcoming product from Nintendo for the current Nintendo Wii right now. The biggest upcoming game is The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, but Nintendo has never said explicitly that the game would be coming out on the existing Wii. It could be a launch game for Wii 2 this upcoming holiday season.
Nintendo is getting ready to make a big splash at the end of this month with the release of 3DS. This fall is when Sony is expected to release their NGP portable gaming device as direct competition. It might take some steam out of Sony’s plans if Wii 2 did surface in stores around the same time.
This holiday season the Nintendo Wii will turn 5 years old. Its graphics and video capabilities have always been overshadowed by Xbox 360 and PS3, and the gap only widens as more and more people upgrade to high definition televisions. Xbox 360 and PS3 are built to have longer life-cycles with operating system updates and faster hardware. The Wii is not and grows increasingly outdated and less attractive by the minute.
Source: ZeldaInformer.com via TechRadar
