Wii successor in the works

Indeed, indeed, indeed, it's probably way too early to really be talking about the next generation of systems, but for all you gamers who like that sort of thing, this one's for you.

But first, THQ's CEO Brian Farrell needs you to know something:

"One of the things I like about this generation is we are still very early and there's still a lot of room for growth … as we move down those price curves. Those engines have a lot of steam left in them. We think it could be seven or eight years before new machines start to roll out."

Typically, we'd get a new console every five or six years, but this looks to be changing; rising development costs and new, more expensive technology means both gamers and developers are going to have to chill a bit.

With all that said (phwew), Nintendo have revealed they're working on the successor to the Wii:

"We are always preparing for the next hardware," [President] Satoru Iwata says. "We are under development. … But the hardware is a kind of box that consumers reluctantly buy in order to play our games."

Quite an odd comment, I find. Does anyone reluctantly buy a console? Obviously spending money for anything kind of sucks, but I don't think paying for a console is any worse than paying for games, and I love opening that sealed box and taking out all the goodies for my own. But moving on to more important matters:

"Every hardware needs some revolutionary features," Iwata says. "This time around, it happened to be we had a revolutionary user interface. Will it be the same for the next generation? I really can't tell. It's natural for the current customer to expect Nintendo is going to once again do something different. If the people are expecting so many different things from Nintendo, it's going to be difficult for us to go beyond that expectation again."

Indeed, how do you make equally innovative strides the next time around? It's probably not going to happen, but I think using what they've accomplished so far to carry them forward is most wise here. It would be absurd to ditch the motion-sensing technology, I feel (how about you?), and best to expand on it. Some virtual reality stuff, perhaps? Or would that be a disaster?