Wii HD in 2011?

According to the story, Nintendo has been showing off the new system to game developers and publishers, and the set date for this device is in 2011.

While our sources are reluctant to be too specific about “Wii HD,” they have been able to divulge some (albeit predictable) generalizations. High definition visuals are assured, as is a greater emphasis on digitally distributed and backwardly compatible content, indicating that the new system will feature some form of local storage medium such as a hard drive or large flash memory solution. It has also been indicated that Nintendo’s emphasis is again on what the consumer will hold in their hands and interact with, rather than the “console” itself.

It's not rocket science to understand that Nintendo are already working on a Wii successor, however it won't be like past, it won't be a brand new console.

Nintendo have clearly established two new brands of console, the DS and Wii. Both brands have been designed to live the distance and go way beyond a single hardware generation, look at what is happening with the DS with the DS Lite and now DSi.

We're positive the next gen Wii will have a simple but similar name Wii HD or perhaps Wii Plus. Nintendo won't sacrifice the name and its current user base.

Clearly the "newer model" would make sense to take advantage of the advances in technology with surely a HDTV output and digital surround sound. We'd also expect a newer Wiimote with Motion Plus built in and any new motion control they have up their sleeves.

Another no brainer would be a proper internal hard drive or large capacity internal storage, getting around any of those storage issues and there would be a bigger emphasis on downloaded content and games, less of those "disc" things.

Obviously this news story is more about the timing, 2011 might seem a long way off but its probably about right.. possibly 2010 but certainly not next year.

Interesting.