PSP World

Why Wii HD May Arrive Sooner Than We Think

So far this generation Nintendo has managed to accomplish what Sony and Microsoft couldn't, by uniting casual and hardcore gamer alike around a single device in the living room. This strategy, while perhaps not appealing to every type of gamer, has undoubtedly paid off for Nintendo, which announced that it has sold more than 50 million examples of the Wii console since launch. Having benefitted from the "first mover advantage" gained by its unique motion control scheme, Nintendo isn't going to rest on its success. As Microsoft and Sony both play catch-up with their own motion control peripherals, it might be time for Nintendo to spring into action in order to secure its dominance in the family home.

Signs are showing that sales of the Nintendo Wii have begun to plateau and even decline slightly, following its meteoric popularity over the past 3 years. Beginning this March 2009, sales of the Wii console began to dropby as much as 17% when compared with the same period a year previously. Keep in mind that Nintendo is still selling a LOT of Wii consoles, just not as many as it did a year ago. The massive profits that the company has reaped from its Wii and DS machines means that Nintendo is flush with cash that it has been able to pump into an accelerated R&D program for a console that analysts are calling the Wii HD.

Because of the massive popularity of the Wii console, little is expected to change in its next hardware revision. Nintendo will likely retain the "Wii" brand name, along with the online ecosystem that it has already built up around the Wii, including the Wii Shop Channel and the Mii avatar system. In fact, Wii HD might not be a bad idea for the name of this device, which will be backwards-compatible with current Wii titles but add much faster processor, larger storage and support for television displays up to 1080p.

Nintendo's early justification for releasing an arguably underpowered system was that the sale of HD displays had not yet penetrated far enough into the market to make a difference in 2006. However despite the lagging global economy, sales of HD television sets has rapidly continued since the launch of the Wii, with more than 34% of American households now sporting an HD display.

Fans of core Nintendo franchises have been somewhat disappointed over the past few video game trade shows. Nintendo almost seems to be holding back its best games, refusing for example to reveal a new Zelda, Kid Icarus, or Donky Kong title to satiate rabid fans. Instead, we get a sequel to the uber-successful Mario Galaxy and a re-tread of New Super Mario Brothers 2D. If anything, Nintendo appears to be stalling, but for what? Our bet is that at least some of these core franchises under internal development have been moved to the Wii HD track, so that when the device is ready to launch, Nintendo has some knockout franchises to entice fans to upgrade. We would tentatively put a Wii HD release on retail shelves in North America by holiday 2010.

Super Mario Galaxy would be automatically upscaled to 1080p when played on the Wii HD console.