Satoru Iwata holding keynote at GDC ’11 – will the Wii 2 be unveiled?

Satoru Iwata revealing the Wii to the World

Remember this? Good times, good times...

Satoru Iwata is going to be making a presentation at GDC 2011 (that’s the Game Developer’s Conference, in case you’re unfamiliar with it). While no one knows what exactly he’s planning to talk about, there’s a rumour brewing that he’ll give us the first look at the Wii’s successor. This seemingly baseless rumour stems mostly from the fact that GDC 2005 marked the public revelation of the Wii – then famously known as “Revolution.”

Most release date rumours are currently pointing towards a 2012 launch for the Wii’s successor, which falls right in line with Nintendo’s history of releasing new consoles not too late after their latest generation of handhelds. Therefore, I wouldn’t be surprised if Iwata threw us a bone this year, as little as it may be (you might remember that the Wii’s motion controls were kept secret until it was fairly close to launch time). If he does say anything about it, don’t expect it to be anything too juicy: maybe a codename, a few vague, carefully worded statements that will be quoted and requoted all over the Internet for the next six months, and perhaps even a mysterious picture or other.

In case you want to mark it on your calendar, GDC 2011 begins on February 28th – just two days after the 3DS’s Japanese release – and continues through March 4th. While we know the dates of the event, we’ve yet to find out on which day of it Iwata will be holding his little speech.

Source: GDC

On a side note, sorry for the lack of updates as of late. Not only has there been a general lack of Wii 2-related news and rumours to write about, but I’ve been having some bad computer troubles, too. As always, if you find anything interesting you think is worth posting to this site, feel free to send it in anytime!

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Comments, Reactions, and General Hooliganism

  1. xemnas

    maybe they will announce it but I hope it has full backward compatibility with wii and gamecube

    • F0

      Knowing Nintendo, it probably will; Nintendo’s usually pretty keen about backwards compatibility. If they use a PowerPC CPU for a third time in the Wii 2, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be able to play Wii and GameCube games.

  2. wiiboy101

    not a chance of it…. Wii just took 2010 and december 2010 number 1 sales,, x360/kinect well beaten and DS beat everything wii is number 1 usa and globally kinect failed the wii doomed storys as i said are MYTH ps3 totally flopped in usa and was beaten by wii in japan

    nothing sony and MS have done helped wii is still owning globally as is DS ,,3DS about to launch WOW

  3. If my dates are right the Wii launched 2 years after the DS and gamecube launched same year or year after the gameboy advance. Which means he really might announce it in February.

    Then again he might want to wait until the 3DS heat has died off so that he can spread out Nintendo hype for the longest time XD

  4. George Tirebiter

    The only announcement I do see happening in the near future is a slight comment at E3, just like ’04 when Iwata first mentioned the Revolution. At least that should happen this year.

    Some folks on Nintendo Voice Chat at IGN say there’s no chance of any announcement about a successor this year, but I believe that’s going too far. I do say an absence of Wii 2 talks is warranted since the main focus of this year is 3DS advertising.

  5. matt

    It will be metioned at GDC i think as hes talking about game design and where we go next ect that could well be talk about 3DS/Wii2 if they metion anything it will be small details like a codename ect maybe a sneak peak at the concept drawings ect thats it oh and a release window ie 2012 or 2013 ect