So select journalists got to meet Shigeru Miyamoto at a behind-closed-doors press session yesterday at E3. Nintendo does something like this every year-- last year's session announced Pikmin 3 while 2007's announced Super Smash Bros. Brawl, if memory serves. This year's session announced a new Zelda game that's probably still a few years off... and what could be the death knell of the Wii as we know it.
When asked about whether or not New Super Mario Bros. Wii would support online multiplayer for all four players, Miyamoto admitted that the game wouldn't-- because simply running the game without online support maxed out the Wii's processor. Miyamoto tried to excuse this by saying that all developers are ultimately limited by a system's processor, but the fact remains that a maxed-out processor is usually a sign of a new console generation on the horizon. Once a processor is maxed then it quickly gets difficult to make new games seem more impressive than older ones.
In recent years increasingly complacent casual audiences willing to keep supporting systems years and years after they've been maxed out and begun to enter decline. Remember that in terms of pure hours played and units sold, right now the most popular video game system on the market is the PS2, which is a sprightly nine years old. It's possible that Nintendo could use controller gimmicks and add-ons to keep Wii alive as long as the competition. Problem: games on 360 and especialy PS3 are just going to keep looking better and better for at least a couple more years-- while we may see everything Wii has to offer before the end of 2009.
