Most Recent: Wii U

In the flurry of Nintendo Wii 2 rumors and news, yet another tidibit of information has trickled down for Mario’s next console.

The pic on your left shows a slide from a Nintendo presentation, possibly for E3, possibly for developers they’re showing off the console to. It displays an interesting prototype design, one looking a lot like those controllers we reported the Wii 2 may have.

Even more interesting is the fact that Nintendo may be pursuing a new take on splitscreen gaming, taking the partitions of a screen during such multipalyer sessions and putting it on a controller. It’s also reminiscent of the Gamecube’s Gameboy Advance interoperability, putting certain elements on the screen for games like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures. You have to admit, if it’s going to be a small screen anyway, it’s kind of like taking the tried-and-true couch multiplayer and turning it into handheld multiplayer. Those controllers better have speakers!

The Nintendo Wii 2 will be officially unveiled at this year’s E3. We’ll keep you posted on all the details.

In a note to investors released this morning, Nintendo has confirmed that a “successor to the Wii” will launch in 2012.

The rumored code name of “Project Cafe” wasn’t mentioned in the statement, so it’s still just the “Wii 2” for now. But the publisher did confirm that we’ll all get our first look at the system (along with some hands-on time) at this year’s E3 expo, which will be held from June 7th through the 9th.

Nintendo didn’t narrow a release date down beyond “TBA 2012,” but they did say that “sales of this new system have not been included in the finanical forecasts announced today for the fiscal term ending March 2012” so don’t expect the “Wii 2” to appear before April 2012.

More Wii 2 rumors have emerged, this time courtesy of French news site 01net (they were also responsible for the initial NGP leak). CVG has kindly translated the report and revealed some rather juicy details about Nintendo’s next console (which should make an appearance at this year’s E3).

According to the report, the Wii 2 is known internally as Project Cafe and will be very similar to the Xbox 360 in processing power. The technical specs bear this out as the system is said to contain “a custom IBM PowerPC CPU with three cores, a GPU from the ATI R700 family with a shader unit at version 4.1, and at least 512Mb of RAM.”

More impressive is the console’s controller, which will include “a six-inch touch screen, a front-facing camera, D-Pad, two bumpers, two triggers and ‘possibly more.'” Wow.

Finally, the system is said to be packed with backwards compatibility options. In addition to games designed exclusively for it, Project Cafe will be able to play GameCube and Wii games (along with support for all Wii peripherals).

But don’t expect to play it this year, the 01net report concluded with a release date of late 2012 for the system.

The whispers have spoken incessantly about it, the gamers have begged for it, and Michael Pachter has said it would fail. Ladies and gentlemen, the High Definition successor to the Wii is coming very close to its confirmation.

Game Informer reports multiple sources have confirmed that Nintendo will definitely unveil an HD console at this year’s E3, if not sooner. The common denominator from all sources is that it will run in High Definition; whether it will surpass, compete with, or fall short of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 is up in the air.

Apparently, Nintendo is showing the console to third party publishers already, in order to garner support early on, and possibly even go after the western gamer. This could remedy the lack of third party support that has plagued Nintendo since the N64 days.

I declare the plausible speculation season for this year’s E3 TO BE OPEN for gamers.