Speaking to CVG, the UK retailer GAME shared its predictions that there would be massive widespread interest in the Wii’s successor. Neil Aschurst, the head of the company, commented on how the Wii left its mark on living rooms across the world, and what that means for its successor.

Here’s the full quote:

The Nintendo Wii has been one of the most popular games consoles in recent years, and has transformed the gaming landscape. It brought gaming to a much wider audience and into the living room as an activity for all the family.

There is going to be huge interest in what its successor will look like and what new features will be added – especially with the current trend for 3D and high-def gaming.

Just like with the Wii before and more recently the 3DS, you know that Nintendo will be challenging the current gaming conventions.

Do you agree with Neil’s opinion that Project Café will have a profound, Wii-like effect on how we think of video games, or will it be more of an “incremental” step forward?

A listing on LinkedIn (dug up by PixlBit) seems to confirm some very interesting information. Timothy Randall, a programmer at EA, apparently worked on audio support for an “unannounced Nintendo platform” as far back as August 2010. The 3DS had definitely been announced by that point, so that leaves Project Café as the only possibility.

Seems Nintendo started handing dev kits out quite a while ago. I just hope that the relatively long period of time EA have had with the kit means that we’ll be getting something better than shovelware from them at Project Café’s launch.

A reader sent me an insider photo of what he claims is an early build of the Wii’s successor. He wishes to remain anonymous, but did have some information to share. Hit the break for the picture and the details! Continue reading…

We have decided to release Wii’s successor in 2012.

We plan to display it in a playable form at the E3 show to be held from June 7 in Los Angeles. The specifications are to be revealed at the show.

I am afraid I can’t say any specific here today but, at E3, the company hopes to propose a new framework for a game system to be enjoyed at home.

And that’s it. Just as I had predicted, Iwata revealed nothing about the Wii’s successor at the meeting that Nintendo didn’t already mention in their official announcement.

Before I end this (hopefully not too disappointing) short post, I’d also like to mention that Iwata is planning to support the Wii with a new major software release every month from May to the end of the summer. He said this in context of the Japanese release calendar, but hopefully he’s planning to treat the rest of the world similarly.

Emily Rogers has made quite the name for herself over the past week or so, starting by giving us hope for Pikmin 3 finally seeing the light of day on the Wii’s successor, followed by an outpouring of tempting tidbits.

Today, her sources confirmed that Retro Studios‘ secret project is neither Eternal Darkness 2 nor a new Zelda game, so I guess you can cross those two off the list. She didn’t say anything about a Donkey Kong Country Returns sequel, though…

Emily then warned us that there is one particular third party that is “planning to shamelessly milk the new Nintendo console with lots of PS3/360 ports.” Nintendo allegedly told developers how easy it is to port games over from the Xbox 360, due to Project Café’s similar architecture, and this one developer thinks it’s a passable excuse to pass on making anything too original for the new system. Ubisoft and EA are on the list of developers thought to be in possession of a Project Café dev kit, so it’s not surprising to hear something like this.

Lastly, Emily claims to have seen a number of screenshots of a Project Café game, and says that they are “more beautiful than any PS3/360 game I’ve seen,” noting that Nintendo’s famous expanded colour palette really shines when paired up with the system’s next-generation horsepower. “You will know what game I’m talking about when E3 comes around,” she teased (I bet it’s Pikmin 3).

Emily also finally told us where she’s getting her info from. Apparently, she’s dating someone who works very closely with Nintendo, but warns us to take the info she passes on from him with a grain of salt nonetheless.

An unknown Sony employee (well, not entirely unknown; we know her first name is Sandy) has just gone on record trash talking about Nintendo’s next console with the following line:

We’re not afraid of a little coffee stain.

Oooh, Nintendo’s not gonna like that, Sandy. Does the line imply that Sony has secretly been working on a PlayStation 4 that they, too, will debut at E3? Or is she just desperately trying to maintain an image of Sony as the “tough guy” in the marketplace, through the unexplained PlayStation Network outage and all?

As Paul Gale, who broke this story, said: “I can guarantee that this year’s E3 will go down as ‘unforgettable.'”

Chris Kohler of Wired.com has written a wonderful editorial on why it makes perfect sense for Nintendo’s next home console to have a touchscreen controller. It touches on Nintendo’s past attempts to add extra screens beyond the TV to the living room, and presents several likely reasons for why the Wii’s wireless connectivity to the DS ended up being woefully underutilized.

I’d summarize the piece for you, but to do so would be a disservice to Chris’s work, so I’ll leave you with a link to his original article. It’s a great read, particularly if your head is spinning with the numerous stories that have been coming out over the past few days, as the writing takes its time and doesn’t rush ahead. By all means, do check it out.

Iwata seems to be warming up for tonight’s investor relations meeting. At a conference earlier today, he assured us that the Wii’s successor will ‘offer a new way of playing games within the home.’ The full quote is as follows:

As for the details of exactly what it will be, we have decided that it is best to let people experience it for themselves at E3. So I won’t talk about specific details today, but it will offer a new way of playing games within the home.

The quote’s quite vague, but what I find personally exciting is Iwata’s use of the word “within.” I’m just speculating here, but I think he means to tell us that Project Café will not be tethered to a single TV in the house, and can be enjoyed throughout the home. An earlier report from 01net suggested the possibility of being able to play games without turning the TV on, and taking your game to the bathroom with you. Not the most elegant example, but it adds further fuel to the rumour of a touchscreen controller. Consider also that Miyamoto told us that the 3DS could be used as a controller for the new system.

What do you think?

Some time ago, word got out that Nintendo might announce or mention the Wii’s successor in some capacity in their next investor relations meeting. For the uninitiated, Nintendo holds one of these meetings every quarter of their fiscal year for their investors. The idea of these meetings is to, well, convince investors that Nintendo is a company worth pouring money into. Many of these meetings go by with little more than graph after graph of sales data being shown, but they have been known to produce newsworthy announcements for gamers, too – most recently, the new Kirby and Rhythm Heaven titles for the Wii. Continue reading…

Wow, so much for a set of images that everyone is convinced are fake. I just found a picture of the back of that console, which shows us where everything would plug in. There appears to be an antenna, two USB ports (or are they HDMI?), and some other attachment point that I can’t really make out – probably a proprietary power/AV-out combo jack. Take it for what it is – I still think it’s bogus, especially considering that there’s suddenly less reflection in the table than there was in the last two pics.