Sources claim Nintendo will unveil Wii successor during E3

by Steven Mostyn - Apr 15 2011, 06:55

Following on from recent rumors regarding a surprise May price drop for the Nintendo Wii, videogame magazine Game Informer (GI) is now claiming that Nintendo will unveil its next home console during or just before June’s E3 Expo in Los Angeles.

Citing multiple (conveniently) unnamed sources, the report also suggests that the upcoming Wii successor is already in the hands of software publishers as Nintendo strives to drum up widespread third-party support for the platform ahead of its late 2012 launch.

However, it would appear GI’s sources don’t agree on the console’s core capabilities—make of that what you will where the validity of their information is concerned.

While all seem happy to say the console will sport high-definition graphics (no great leap), there are apparently conflicting viewpoints as to whether the hardware will merely match or surpass that already utilized by Sony’s five-year-old PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s six-year-old Xbox 360.

Despite boldly claiming that Nintendo’s next home console will be thrust into E3’s global spotlight in around eight weeks, none of GI’s sources could say whether the device will include backwards compatibility with existing Wii games, what kind of control system it will employ, or if it will even carry Wii branding.

Although there’s scant little known about the console—if it actually exists—one of the magazine’s anonymous sources claims that it’s “not a gimmick like the Wii,” and that Nintendo “is doing this one right.”

Call us overly cynical, but we find it hard to believe that Nintendo thinks it ‘did it wrong’ with the original Wii. Indeed, its ‘gimmick’ console has sold close to 90 million units worldwide, which is almost as many as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 put together.

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