Will the Nintendo HD Console be Announced at E3 2011?
It came as nothing more than a rumor; Nintendo allegedly planned to announce a new console at 2011’s E3 convention. Tentatively called the Wii 2, the news first broke as the popular
Game Informer magazine announced that “multiple sources confirmed the new HD console.”
The new home system will be capable of running games at HD resolutions, and was rumored to be backwards compatible with all Wii games. Perhaps most importantly, Game Informer’s sources also confirmed that Nintendo was already showing off its new system to third party publishers in anticipation for a 2012 launch. This strategy would mark a deviation from the norm for the Nintendo Company, whose most popular launch titles are based in Nintendo franchises, such as Mario or Zelda. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata acknowledged this need for change at a 3DS press conference, saying that “We need to decrease the concern that only Nintendo software can sell well on Nintendo platforms…We feel a need to have closer ties with our third-party developers from the beginning.”
Since the initial rumors, questions have arisen over how powerful the new console would be, and whether or not it could live up to the hype of the first Wii’s incredible launch sales (Over 600,000 consoles sold in the first eight days of launch in America alone, according to IGN) or the processing power of Microsoft's Xbox360, or Sony’s Playstation 3.
01net Reports on Project Café
Less than a day after rumors broke on Game Informer, French website
01net claimed to have obtained some pivotal details about the console. 01net asserts that the Wii 2, or “Project Café”, as it is code named by Nintendo, will match or surpass the processing power of the Xbox360. The system will include a three-core custom IBM PowerPC CPU, an ATI R700 GPU, and 512 MB of RAM.
Nintendo's Innovative Control Scheme
Perhaps of most interest is the newest design mechanism for Nintendo’s ever innovative control scheme. The Project Café is rumored to sport an embedded 6 inch HD touch screen, a camera, a D-pad, 2 bumpers, and 2 triggers. To support backwards compatibility, the controller will double as a sensor bar, making it not only possible to play Wii games, but also to use the Wii controller.
Nintendo has not yet confirmed any of these rumors, but chances are with E3 coming up in June, we will all be treated to some of Nintendo’s groundbreaking announcements sooner, rather than later.
