My take on the five things:
1. I'm still doubting rumors of a "touchscreen controller." Remember that people rumored the same thing about the Wii, back before the whole motion-sensitive thing was made public. Turned out those rumors were a bunch of bologna. I'd expect that the new controller will not deviate TOO far from the original Wii's, perhaps mainly focusing more on ergonomics and useability, especially in improving the number of accessible buttons. The main major thing up in the air is if Nintendo will stay with an ambidextrous design, or settle on a specific "handedness." (this is particularly interesting, since IIRC, Japan has a higher rate of left-handed people than found in North America or Europe)
2. I don't think it'd be hard to hold onto the market share re-gained/created/etc. by the Wii. Nintendo has a rather strong brand name: console brand names in general are very strong, comparable to that of, say, Apple or Google. Having a head start on the 8th generation will give Nintendo an advantage as well. (not that this advantage is the deciding factor, of course) Of course, overall the 8th generation is late: all prior generations have consistently been about 5 years apart each, centered around years divisible by 5, even. (1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, as naming the years should conjure up some images)
As far as competing with the Xbox 720 and PS4, one can (probably safely) presume that Microsoft and Sony are done agressively building a console that sells at a loss. (after all, only the Xbox, 360, and PS3 ever sold at a loss, and all other consoles sold at a profit) Hence, unlike before, Nintendo need not make a horrendously expensive piece of hardware to be competitive from a performance standpoint, even if a year or two ahead. This is partly influenced by the diminishing returns we're seeing in graphics as well. (no doubt also a factor in the delayed 8th generation) Microsoft appears to be ready to reap in the benefits of the market share they bought with their first two consoles, and Sony's under pressure from investors to make a better profit after the embarassing flop the PS3 was, when their backers were expecting a repeat of the PS1 and PS2.
3. The HD support is a given, d'oh! Never mind the fact that the Xbox 360 usually didn't do true HD... (most hardcore games for it are 576p, 600p, or 640p and upscale to 720p) The Wii could've done HD itself had it not been for a relatively bone-headed choice of design: keeping the same core graphics architecture of the Game Cube, complete with its fixed 1MB frame buffer.
4. Third-party support is indeed Nintendo's main weakness, as has been for the past three generations. However, given their early start and proven market share dominance with the Wii, I think they'll have a much easier time this round. Of course, at first we'll almost certainly have to deal with "hastily-done ports from the PS3 and Xbox 360," which will lend illusion that the "Wii 2" is just comparable to those consoles. Then again, PC gamers have been suffering this very same thing for years now, too. But in time, it should mature and possibly be a deciding factor here.
5. Integrating a handheld as a controller is something that's been experimented with before; Generally it resulted in a sort of flop. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo actually tried to shy away from that. The GBA/Game Cube integration didn't go over so well.
[citation][nom]11796pcs[/nom]I don't know anything about video game history[/citation]
As mentioned: this statement is very true about you... So I'll give you a bit of a crash course here:
In terms of hardware power, I'd recommend taking a look at especially the Nintendo64; while dinged for its lack of CD capability, in terms of power it was perhaps the only console to out-perform a high-end PC on its release. (mostly due to the lack that PC 3D acceleration had hardly been standardized at the time, so the N64 had hardware T&L while most PC games were software rendered on plain 256K VGA cards) The PS1 and Sega Saturn were practically bad jokes in terms of comparison: it was a gap of scale roughly comparable to that between the PS3 and Wii, albeit without being as easily-described for the layperson as "one does HD and the other doesn't." Enthusiasts, though, will recognize terms like the N64 having the advantage in support for bilinear filtering, full-scene anti-aliasing, fully-hardware-accelerated multitexturing, and hardware transform & lighting. Nintendo's prior consoles all did generally out-shine their competition on each generation in terms of power. Of course, with fixed-function 2D graphics, the differences might be smaller or not as clear-cut, but Nintendo had the definite advantage with the NES and SNES.
Games-wise, the N64 did mark where Nintendo started to lose third-party support: they DID have a stranglehold on it before, but I'm sure you can see that the reasons the N64 lost it were obvious, at least the basic part of it. The CAPACITY of CDs actually didn't make much of a difference; FMVs were still limited to jRPGs at the time, which hadn't yet become the massive system sellers like they would on the PS2. (FF VII was the exception that paved the way for the PS2, not the norm) The real reason the lack of CDs was a dealbreaker was due to cost and investment: due to long durations and high costs for manufacturing ROM and cartridges, profit margins on games were slim and developers risked suffering the
same infamous fate as E.T.. CDs, on the other hand, could be stamped for pennies apiece, so profits were big, and one could be way off in predicting demand without much harm: a million unsold CDs could be shrugged off, and shortages compensated for in days.
Going back farther, Nintendo was truly the dominant force, even when it came to "hardcore" gamers. While many deride them for supposedly being kid-friendly, their censorship policies got chucked out the window when Sega presented Nintendo's first credible opponent with the Genesis. This was the era that took the SNES from having a hilariously-censored version of
Wolfenstein 3D to having an un-censored version of
Doom.
As far as Sony goes... The PS3 marks the first and only time they've been in first (or close enough) in terms of graphical power. As I'd mentioned above, the PS1 compared to the N64 like the Wii did to the PS3. The PS2, in general, could readily be argued as superior to the Game Cube, though advantages were only slight, and both definitely fell behind the Xbox.
[citation][nom]kenshin308[/nom]1. They may go for a fusion type CPU/GPU processor. Similar to the latest Xbox360.2. They may even go as far going back to cartridges are memory prices are already cheap[/citation]
1. Most consoles merge the CPU/GPU onto one chip later in life. The PS2 did this as well, for instance. The main savings come from being able to use a cheaper motherboard, as motherboards can't really be minaturized like silicon can. (hence why consoles that don't see this often have small, simple motherboards to begin with)
2. Going back to cartridges is a TERRIBLE idea. Might be cheap for the console, but it drives developers away. "cheaper memory" is only relative. Any form of optical disc costs mere pennies to stamp, and production can be scaled up and down with only a few hours' notice. Contrast this to cartridges, which even today can have a lead-in time of a couple weeks from a production order to the batches rolling in.
[citation][nom]itchyisvegeta[/nom]
6. Transfer your previously purchased WiiWare/Virtual Console games to the Wii 2.[/citation]
This is a very important thing. And really, it's something that all three companies are going to have to ensure works flawlessly. Though prior generations technically saw it first, the current 7th generation saw paid-for downloaded content become a major staple of consoles, to the point where it's a primary part of EVERY console's design and market. Ensuring that users can keep a consistent account, with all their games, between one console to the next, will be critical: failure to do so here could very likely outright doom a console in spite of any other virtues it has.
I think Microsoft will likely have an edge here, since they had some time to practice this with the migration from the original Xbox Live to the one for the Xbox 360; this showed when the 360 had online support up strong from day 1 while Nintendo and Sony were playing catch-up even though they launched a year later. Both Japanese makers will have to work hard to ensure that even if the hardware changes, users can expect all of the old PSN/Wii Channels services they had before.
Facebook
Twitter