Wii Successor Announced for 2012

In a short letter published this morning Nintendo has officially announced that the Wii's successor will be released in 2012.

To whom it may concern:

Re: Wii's successor system

Nintendo Co., Ltd. has decided to launch in 2012 a system to succeed Wii, which the company has sold 86.01 million units on a consolidated shipment basis between its launch in 2006 and the end of March 2011.

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.

Sales of this new system have not been included in the financial forecasts announced today for the fiscal term ending March 2012.

The last week or so has been a busy time for rumors about Nintendo's next project codenamed "Project Cafe". Such rumors have include that Project Cafe will feature high-definition graphics and a handheld touch screen controller. These rumors will either be confirmed or crushed when the playable model hits E3 this June.

For those wondering about 3D in future gaming Iwata had this to say; “We would like to propose a new approach to home video game consoles. It’s difficult to make 3-D images a key feature, because 3-D televisions haven’t obtained wide acceptance yet.

One thing I personally hope for is that this next console is backwards compatible for Wii games. Bonus points for both Wii and Gamecube games.

Source: cnet news
Source: Nintendo Investor Relations (PDF)