The president of Nintendo of America has revealed the first details about the company’s next-generation console. Apparently, it will not be just a high-definition Wii, as many analysts tend to believe, but it will be a brand-new system with support of HD resolutions as well as mysterious
“additional capabilities”.

“The fundamental issue in the logic flow is that […] ‘gosh it is such an opportunity to take HD capability and link it with the Wii’. […] That is not the way we at Nintendo do things. The way we at Nintendo do things is, you know, when we will move to a new generation, it is because there are some fundamental things the [current] console cannot do. What that says is that simply the addition of HD capability will not be the next step for us. There will be more to it. There will be additional capability. There will be additional elements, and, given that, it is far into the future,” said Reggie Fils-Aime in an interview with Kotaku web-site.

Late last month a rumour transpired that the next-generation game console from Nintendo 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 was projected to 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.

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.

When asked to clarify whether Nintendo’s next-gen console is set to be launched in 2010 or later, Mr. Fils-Aime denied to make any claims.

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.

Tags: Nintendo, Wii