Nintendo confirms ‘Wii 2’ gaming console, preview coming at E3

By Adam Rosenberg April 25, 2011

It all started in the middle of this month. Rumors sprung up of a planned price drop for Nintendo‘s Wii gaming console, prompting many to speculate that the Japanese company would be announcing a successor to the popular device at this year’s E3 trade show. It wasn’t long after that the speculation turned to rumor: yes, a “Wii 2” announcement would indeed be coming at E3. The talk picked up from there, with everything from the planned release date to hardware specifications being hinted at, but Nintendo kept quiet. That silence has been broken and the word is now official.

The next next-gen war has begun.

The fact of the unreleased console’s existence is all that the company is willing to talk about right now. A terse press release states: “Nintendo has decided to launch in 2012 a system to succeed Wii… We will show a playable model of the new system and announce more specifications at the E3 Expo, which will be held June 7-9, 2011, in Los Angeles.”

Wii 2, confirmed. Some of the more recent talk presents some tantalizing possibilities for Nintendo’s plans moving into the next console generation. Hardware-wise, the system will be designed to at least compete with — if not surpass — the capabilities of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. That means high def output and the ability to run the same multi-platform releases that come to the other two consoles.

There’s also word on a rather unique innovation for the system’s control schemes. The Wii’s motion controls will return, though it’s unclear if this means totally new hardware, support for Wii peripherals or a mix of the two. There’s also going to be a more traditional gamepad, with twin analog thumbsticks, eight buttons and so on. It seems that this controller will also feature a few innovations, notably adding in a camera and a 6.2-inch touchscreen. Given all of this, Nintendo presumably hopes to win back the core gaming audience while continuing to promote the family-friendly appeal that has made the Wii so popular.

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Previously, Adam worked in the games press as a freelance writer and critic for a range of outlets, including Digital Trends…

Gaming

Nintendo is shutting down online services for 3DS and Wii U next April

Mega Man and Mario fight in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U,

Nintendo confirmed it will widely shut down online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U games in April 2024, which will be just over a year after it discontinued the Nintendo eShop on those systems.
This deactivation of most of the online services for those platforms was revealed on X (formerly Twitter) and Nintendo's support site early Wednesday. "In early April 2024, online play and other functionality that uses online communication will end for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software. This also includes online co-operative play, internet rankings, and data distribution," the message says. "We will announce a specific end date and time at a later date. Please note that if an event occurs that would make it difficult to continue online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software, we may have to discontinue services earlier than planned. We sincerely thank players for using the online services of Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software over a long period of time and apologize for any inconvenience."
Essentially, this means that after April 2024, you won't be able to use any online features in things like 3DS Pokémon games or Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U anymore. Nintendo does say in the Q&A section of its support article that people will still be able to play games offline and redownload updates and games from the Nintendo eShop for the foreseeable future. Pokémon Bank will remain unaffected, so it'll still be possible to transfer Pokémon from Ruby and Sapphire all of the way to Pokémon Home. However, SpotPass support and other online-focused applications like Nintendo Badge Arcade will stop working entirely.

Just like the Wii U and 3DS eShop closure that caused a ruckus earlier this year, this move is a blow to game preservation and will forever harm some games not available anywhere else. While it's understandable that Nintendo might want to move on from these systems' dated online infrastructure, it's still a disappointing move for those of us who spent a lot of time playing games offline and online on these systems.

Gaming

What games will Nintendo Switch 2 launch with? We have some ideas

Mario and friends zip through a race course in Mario Kart 8.

We’re officially on “new console watch.” Reports from credible publications like Eurogamer say that Nintendo secretly showed developers its next system behind closed doors at this year’s Gamescom. While it’s only a rumor, it’s a realistic one. We’re six years into the Nintendo Switch’s lifespan and even the longest-running consoles turn over at eight. If Nintendo’s next system is one or two years away, it’s time to start lining up support from third-party developers.

We’ve speculated on features we’d want in a new system before, but the reality of a new platform has me asking another question: What games would you launch with something like this? The Nintendo Switch’s launch day was crucial to its long-term success thanks to a bonafide classic in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. While the rest of its launch lineup wasn’t as impressive, Nintendo capitalized fairly quickly with titles like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Splatoon 2. If Nintendo’s going to push Switch owners over to a new system, it’ll have to roll out the big guns.

Gaming

The future of E3 is in question again as ESA reportedly seeks a 2025 reinvention

The future of the once popular video game industry expo E3 is once again in question as the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) ended its partnership with ReedPop, the company that was helping it revitalize the event.

ReedPop is the company that runs events like PAX, EGX, and C2E2, and the ESA had brought them on board to help reimagine the in-person experience at E3. This was supposed to start with E3 2023, but it ended up being canceled a couple of months before it was supposed to take place. Clearly, the ReedPop and ESA partnership wasn't working well, so both companies have decided to move on. ESA CEO and president Stanley Pierre-Louis provided the following statement on the matter to GamesIndustry.biz.
"We appreciate ReedPop’s partnership over the past 14 months and support their ongoing efforts to bring industry and fans together through their various events. While the reach of E3 remains unmatched in our industry, we are continuing to explore how we can evolve it to best serve the video game industry and are evaluating every aspect of the event, from format to location. We are committed to our role as a convenor for the industry and look forward to sharing news about E3 in the coming months."
This seems to confirm a claim from the Los Angeles City Tourism Commission from earlier in the year that plans for E3 2024 and E3 2025 at the Los Angeles Convention Center had been canceled. That said, Pierre-Louis' statement and the GamesIndustry.biz report indicate that E3 2024 and E3 2025 aren't canceled outright.
GamesIndustry.biz notes that it's still possible for the event to take place in 2024 -- just not at the Los Angeles Convention Center -- and claims that the ESA is "working on a complete reinvention of the E3 show for 2025." We'll just have to wait and see if those plans actually come to fruition, though, as E3 has struggled to return to its former glory since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.