I somehow doubt nintendo would reveal a new console and one targeted at hardcore gamers at that. I feel the wii is still not quite old enough for such a thing (I thought it still had 1 or 2 years left). There is also the strategy issue. A game console aimed at hardcore gamers is the exact opposite of what nintendo did before. The market for which nintendo aimed earlier was MUCH larger, something which xbox and sony learned the hard way, so it really makes no sense to go that way. Seriously, lets take a look at the PS3 and their hardcore gamer strategy. Their console is without a doubt the most powerful around, even the 360 does not quite live up to it and evidently the wii is far behind it, however up to a year ago at least the nintendo wii had sold at least as much of those combined. On top of that nintendo actually made a profit selling wiis, something sony cannot really claim for the first several years of the PS3 existence. If a new console is to be revealed by anyone then it should have the following attributes IMO:
Target market: Mainly "family" as nintendo did and sony tried to go a few years into the product. It is the largest market by far, it is that simple. Gamers do represent a section of the market and they are relevant however I doubt they will ever be as important as they were before.
Capacity and price: It should fit the interest of the target market I mentioned before. Obviously the target market would aim for the best console around however they are not the type to pay hundreds of extra dollars for graphics as the significantly smaller of hardcore gamers would. The console would end up emphasizing gameplay and affordability rather than power. I am sorry hardcore gamers; you contributed to building an industry that was basically non existent 20 years ago however YOU ARE NO LONGER A PRIORITY! Hardcore gamers are the second class citizens of the video game industry which I find to be very ironic.
To sum it up, any new potential console will have a target market and capabilities to fit the widest possible number of consumers and unfortunately the hardcore gamers are but a small section of it. I doubt sony or xbox would do the whole extreme power thing anymore as the target markets even they have begun aiming for hardly require them but I also doubt nintendo will fall as behind as it did before in terms of console capacity as it really won't be able to afford to. Seriously, unless nintendo makes a discovery as huge as the family target market or an interest in motion gaming it simply cannot afford to make a machine whose capacity lags so much behind that of its competitors. It would be interesting if they surprise us that way once again though.
I read an article on the newspaper and apparently I was indeed way off with nintendo not getting a new console out. Only thing which was made apparent is that it was going to have high definition and it is going to be released in 2012. I wonder what new stuff they are going to add. It has to have greater capacity as it would really be pointless to get a new console out without it matching up to the old ones but in turn how much would that cost? And how would sony and microsoft react to that? I guess that by as late as 2013 we should expect new consoles from every major company right?
And having zero time to play any of them with passion. My backlog rivals the Chinese Wall already... döh
