Nintendo, the company that sold most of current-generation game consoles, is rumoured to release its next-generation video game system already next year. The rumour is not a new one since a game publisher exec said last month that Nintendo’s new console may be due “by 2011”. What is interesting is that the next-gen Wii will support high-definition gaming, hence, will be considerably more powerful.

French-language web-site Logic Sunrise claims citing industry sources that the new Nintendo game console will feature high-definition video output (for 720p or 1080p) as well as support for Blu-ray disc in order to limit piracy. The new system will be designed in order to inspire owners of current-generation Wii owners to migrate to the new console and will likely offer better-quality casual games.

The next-generation game console is claimed to be released sometime in 2010, on the same day all around the world. It is interesting to note that usually, information about hardware development contracts for future game systems emerges years earlier than the console arrives to the market, hence, it is a surprise that this time “Wii 2” is a complete mystery: it is completely unclear which technology companies helped Nintendo to create its next-generation game console.

Nintendo Wii is only slightly more powerful than that inside PS2 and the original Xbox. It is very likely that the company spent loads of time optimizing the costs of its hardware instead of boosting its performance. As a result, it is very likely that internally the firm has been working on something more powerful than Wii. Theoretically, this could be so-called Wii HD, but considering that fundamental technology development for Wii was finished around 2004 at the latest, the company has already had five years to develop something completely new, not just an update to Wii.

Nintendo itself denies that it has any concrete plans for the next-generation.

“While we don't have any concrete plans for what we'll be doing with hardware in the future, what I can say is that, my guess is that because we found [motion sensing] interface to be so interesting, I think it would be likely that we would try to make that same functionality perhaps more compact and perhaps even more cost-efficient,” said Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s general manager of Nintendo’s entertainment analysis and development department,  in an interview.

Tags: Nintendo, Wii