First of all we should tackle the most important thing to get right on any console, the controller.
Image courtesy of IGN entertainmentAs many of you will see from this image, the new controller is expected to be very similar in form to the Gamecube handset with the addition of extra shoulder buttons and a 6" screen. In regards to the screen, it'll be a touch-screen and will be able to stream entire games directly from the console. One question that this touch-screen led me to asking - will you be able to play DS or even 3DS games on the system?
IGN sources with knowledge of the project claimed that depending on production costs the new console would retail anywhere between $350 and $400 and will be manufactured by Taiwanese company Foxconn starting in October. If Nintendo were willing to take a hit on their profit margins however the price could be further reduced. Release of the new hardware could be any time from late October onwards depending on Nintendo's desire to build a stockpile or not.
More likely is that Nintendo choose to wait until 2012, building up stock while also giving developers more time to deliver a range of titles for the new console.
At last it looks like Nintendo are joining the next generation. The internals of the new machine will be based on a new version of AMD's R700 GPU which should be able to outdo the PS3's NVIDIA 7800GTX-based processor. Project Cafe will, like the Xbox 360, have a custom triple-core IBM Power PC chip set, the difference being that it will have faster clocking speeds. Given the potential power of the system and the fact that each controller has an in built screen it's been suggested that you could actually have multiple players on the same console, each playing their own "virtualized" console.
Lovers of HD will be pleased to hear that the new platform will support 1080p output and should be more than capable of stereoscopic 3D as well, unlike the 3DS it's not been decided if this will be a set feature of Project Cafe games though.
One of the rumours that IGN reported on that really interested me was that the new machine could possibly resemble a modern version of the SNES, but will that be the US version or the European design? the EU version was a console that i always loved the look of. In terms of size the new console will be of similar proportions to the original Xbox 360.
The last piece of information reported by IGN is that a potential name for the console could be "Stream". Personally i'm not struck on the name but then i wasn't the biggest fan of "Wii" when that was announced. To be honest i'm still not.
There are a few gaps in this information that need to be cleared up of course, how much storage capacity will the hard drive have? Will there be a hard drive at all? Will the new system use DVD, Blu Ray or a proprietary storage format? It's still early days for Project Cafe/Stream/Wii 2, but it'll be interesting to see how this develops.
IGN sources with knowledge of the project claimed that depending on production costs the new console would retail anywhere between $350 and $400 and will be manufactured by Taiwanese company Foxconn starting in October. If Nintendo were willing to take a hit on their profit margins however the price could be further reduced. Release of the new hardware could be any time from late October onwards depending on Nintendo's desire to build a stockpile or not.
More likely is that Nintendo choose to wait until 2012, building up stock while also giving developers more time to deliver a range of titles for the new console.
At last it looks like Nintendo are joining the next generation. The internals of the new machine will be based on a new version of AMD's R700 GPU which should be able to outdo the PS3's NVIDIA 7800GTX-based processor. Project Cafe will, like the Xbox 360, have a custom triple-core IBM Power PC chip set, the difference being that it will have faster clocking speeds. Given the potential power of the system and the fact that each controller has an in built screen it's been suggested that you could actually have multiple players on the same console, each playing their own "virtualized" console.
Lovers of HD will be pleased to hear that the new platform will support 1080p output and should be more than capable of stereoscopic 3D as well, unlike the 3DS it's not been decided if this will be a set feature of Project Cafe games though.
One of the rumours that IGN reported on that really interested me was that the new machine could possibly resemble a modern version of the SNES, but will that be the US version or the European design? the EU version was a console that i always loved the look of. In terms of size the new console will be of similar proportions to the original Xbox 360.
The last piece of information reported by IGN is that a potential name for the console could be "Stream". Personally i'm not struck on the name but then i wasn't the biggest fan of "Wii" when that was announced. To be honest i'm still not.
There are a few gaps in this information that need to be cleared up of course, how much storage capacity will the hard drive have? Will there be a hard drive at all? Will the new system use DVD, Blu Ray or a proprietary storage format? It's still early days for Project Cafe/Stream/Wii 2, but it'll be interesting to see how this develops.
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