NEWSFLASH: NINTENDO WILL POSSIBLY RELEASE A HD CONSOLE AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE, PROBABLY ALONG WITH THE REST OF THE NEXT GENERATION SOMETIME IN 2011!

This my friends is very surprising and exciting news.

*sigh*

Another brilliant statement by Pachter and well done by Gamasutra for quoting this brilliant man.

(yes, I am being sarcastic)

Yeah, in all seriousness, the information in this article is nothing that any random person wouldn't project anyways. And I can't believe Patcher actually would think that Nintendo "has to overcome" anything with the Wii. The damn thing prints money.

I personally believe that the Wii was a quick-and-dirty deal by Nintendo to get money to properly fund a more powerful console and release it only 3-4 years after the Wii (in 2009-2010). We'll see in the next few years.

Sean, I'm with you when you say that the Wii could be a funding operation for Nintendo, although I don't think it was intended. More probably it was their last chance, and now it has become a starting point for something more (more power?). Anyway since they still make money out of it, it's unprobable that they will release the successor in 2 years.

Pachter gets paid for this? Gamasutra should ignore this guy unless he has something useful to offer, not information my 8 year nephew already knows.

Nintendo has gained much new ground with the Wii, and it is selling like hotcakes, but Nintendo has lost much of the hardcore audience, and any one who has seen the Wii running on a HD tv (especially compared to a PS3 or 360, or even a PS3 running a PS2 game in up-convert mode) can tell you why.

Nintendo has a lot of room to expand with the hardcore audience. If they can do that AND retain the casual audience, they will take over games.

I think that is the problem. A system has the stygma of either hardcore gamer -OR- casual gamer. My Aunt won't buy a PS3, but she owns a Wii. A hardcore gamer might buy a Wii (more likely if he/she has kids), but they won't spend much money on it. If, however, consoles are going the way of home entertainment, and therefore replacing DVD and Blu-Ray players in the household, then I don't think Nintendo has a choice but to introduce HD and do it FAST. Everyone's grandmother has a Wii now, so the logical path is to introduce a plug-n-play external drive. Waiting until 2011 may spell a great loss of market. They must do this by the end of 2009 if they want to keep up with Sony and Microsoft markets.

Why do you keep going to this guy for random quotes? He either states the obvious or makes baseless speculation. Maybe he has a basis but it's never stated, which is annoying. Cmon!

If Nintendo lost the hardcore gamer market, they appear to be really broken up about it. ;)

Michael DiMichele: I think part of Sony's problem was trying to make the PS3 the "total entertainment system". The result was a really cool system that costs way too much for most people.

If you already have a Wii, what could an HD Wii really offer other than what Sony and Microsoft already have. I hope that it is "better" than HD (whatever that could be), and perhaps does something that nobody else has done yet.

Since when did Nintendo lose the hardcore audience this generation, did you guys just start playing games this generation? Nintendo lost the core gamer back in the 64 era. They tried to regain ground in the GC era but failed even though they had some impressive games for the platform. Nintendo knew the core gamer abandoned them. That was the whole purpose of Wii. Sell to a different demographic since the average gamer didn't want anything with Nintendo's name on it.

Get off of this "Nintendo lost so much with the core gamer with Wii" bs. A HD capable Wii would not have swayed that group at all. Get a clue people. Core gamers labeled and abandoned Nintendo for being too kiddy over a decade ago.

I don't know why, but I'm reminded again of the distinction between "gamers" and "people who love games."

:/

My statement was only to imply that hardcore gamers are the ones who will spend more money on games and peripherals. When a new game is announced to come out, they line up to reserve it years ahead of time. People won't do that for a Wii game. That is why they will lose ground in this battle. The distinction of Nintendo having lost the hardcore gamer a long time ago was an implied concept that anyone must already know before understanding what I had stated.

Based on the data I've seen, the Wii is still selling twice as many units as the "hardcore" consoles. And they sell more games and peripherals too.

So maybe Nintendo lost the "harecore" years ago, and is doing poorly with "gamers", but they're more than making up for it by selling to "people who play games".

I don't know that the Wii needs that much of a graphics boost.

Now, I'm a stickler for visual quality - but I've played a couple Wii games on a good widescreen tv that looked nicer than some of what I've seen coming out of 360s and PS3s.. especially so when they're hooked up to less-than-stellar flatscreens. Maybe there's less realism but just as much cool factor when the game is well put together.

More oomph is always nice but I wouldn't say it's a dire necessity considering how much better the Wii looks compared to the previous gens (gamecube, xbox, ps2).