You might be thinking that it’s too soon for a successor of the Wii especially with the shortages they have ontop of that. Iwata, the CEO of Nintendo, is freely talking about the next Nintendo system.

Nintendo, as you might expect, is approaching things a bit differently. President Satoru Iwata freely admits the company is already working on the Wii’s successor. However, he adds that he doesn’t view the hardware as particularly interesting.

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

To that end, Nintendo will keep its development well under wraps until Wii sales dry up–in other words, not anytime soon–and developers run out of ways to utilize the system’s interface.
Nintendo, though, is in an unusual position. With the company’s huge success with the current-generation console, consumers are going to expect a lot from it whenever the successor to the Wii is unveiled.

“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,” he continues. “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.”

Source via infendo

Today Activitsion revealed that they’re going to be releasing sequels of their famous Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises.

According to Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith, the publisher’s 2009 lineup will include “multiple new Guitar Hero SKUs [and] an all new Call of Duty [due to our] leapfrog studio strategy,” along with the next Tony Hawk game.

Right now, the next games coming out soon for Activision is Guitar Hero: World Tour and Call of Duty: World at War.

Source via shacknews

One of the most anticipated games of the year has just been announced it’s scheduled release date. Due to sources from MYC it has been said to be released on October 3rd, 2008. This game will be available on all consoles and has vastly improved since last years title.

“We’ve made over 250 improvements from last year and we wanted to give the team the time they needed to make the best FIFA game possible,” said senior product manager Trevor Uzice. “We’re continuing to build on the solid foundation from last year which saw us create the most successful FIFA both in terms of sales and quality.”

These improvements include a 20 man online mode, better responsive shooting and goalkeepers, and an arcade mode only for the Wii.

On bg21gamers.com they posted an interesting article on 5 ways Nintendo can win back core gamers. I thought it would be good to post it here and see what you guys have to say.

1. Nintendo needs a gamer controller. Lets face it the Wii-mote is not a gaming controller, it’s trendy, it’s hokey and maybe fun but it is not a game controller. Nintendo should keep the Wii-mote for the casual gamers and build another controller just for us. I like the Game Cube controller but it should only be the alternative controller.

2. Redesign the Nintendo Wii along with the new controller. The Nintendo Wii needs a new design and color for the core gamer. Black is bad ass but it’s severely over done. I would make it RED. Red is a serious color you know.

3. Drop the “Wii like to Play” gimmic. That campaign where families are all playing together is nice but us core gamers don’t care that. I don’t care about senior citizens playing in the retirement home or the lovable couple playing on the couch. The new campaign should be with adults from 25 to 42 playing games and loving it.

4. Games! Games! Games! Even Miyamoto is tired of the casual games and would like start developing for the traditional gamers. Sony and Microsoft compete for games and so should Nintendo. Having to rely on 1st party developers is what got Nintendo in trouble with the Game Cube, they cannot repeat the same mistake. So Nintendo go after the “Bioshock” and the “Final Fantasy’s” it will only help your product.

5. The virtual console is nice but classics are on every console. Nintendo should give us new games on the virtual console. I would love to play “Super Mario Legend of the Seven Stars” but giving me a game like “Carcassonne” or “Texas Hold’em” gives Nintendo an edge.

Source via bg21gamers