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Something to look forward to:
Live action Street Fighter project

With so many stories online coming out in the last several days regarding Wii 2, Project Cafe, Wii ii, Wii HD, or whatever most people are comfortable with, it’s definitely making for an exciting build up to E3. Fortunately due to some contacts in the industry, I was able to gather a couple of pieces of information. The first was that a new Nintendo console is indeed in the works and that some 3rd parties have already begun experimenting with it. The second piece of news was a great one and that’s regarding Retro Studios developing something that will please many of us.

Today I have another update to the puzzle and it comes from a close 3rd party contact. I asked my source about the power of the console, the likelihood of release this year, are the suggestions of the controller having a screen on it true, and more of the like and did get one nice answer and a little explanation.

“Nintendo’s new machine is powerful and though I hate to bash, it won’t be another Dreamcast. This will be the PS2 of its generation.”

Here is the breakdown of that very substantial line (in my opinion):

Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, and Nintendo 64 were equals. Dreamcast came out in an awkward time of 3 years after N64, 1 year before PS2 and 2 years before Xbox and GameCube. As a result, despite being a powerful and capable system, it got neglected thanks to the battle that was going on between PS and N64 and was overshadowed by what was to be some big competition in PS2, Xbox, and GCN. So then, what was meant in that line earlier, that “Wii 2” will be like PS2?

From what I gather is that Nintendo’s next baby will be considerably more powerful than PS3 and Xbox 360 (like PS2 was to N64 and PS), come out at least a year before them (again like with PS2), and eventually be overpowered but not “all out dominated” by Playstation 4 and Xbox 3. What I don’t know is just how much more powerful will Wii 2 be, over the current HD Twins, but apparantly several developers are having a good feel with the system early on, so that’s definitely good to hear. It’s pieces of info like this that I receive that are a bit more open to interpretation as they aren’t completely clear. No one 3rd party developer, on or off the record, wants to completely screw Nintendo or anyone for that matter, and spill all the beans. That’s why we get tiny little hints like this to whet our appetite.

Call it a rumor if you must; I won’t blame you for doing so. It is better to share some news than no news at all though (in my opinion). Some people hate you for not telling everything, but as a messanger without more info, it’s not fair to blame. And if there is more info withheld (which only the “who” is in this story), usually there’s an NDA behind it. More as it comes in and hopefully at E3 when I attend, I’ll be able to bring back all the info you want in my Q/A.

3 thoughts on “Wii 2 will not be Dreamcast, it’ll be “the PlayStation 2 of next gen”.”

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