LFTE: The Console Landscape (June 11)

Finally addressing the inevitable, Nintendo has confirmed it will reveal the successor to the Wii at this year's E3, with a planned launch in 2012.

While this news is all well and good for Nintendo fans who have been praying for the company to close the technology gap with Sony and Microsoft, it brings up an interesting question: Is a new generation of consoles coming from all -the -manufacturers?

It's a slippery question, but one that I think has a very clear and easy answer. Long story short: No.

Nintendo's Wii has dominated this generation of consoles, shipping over 86 million units in a five-year span. Five years ago Nintendo chose to forgo high definition graphics, bleeding-edge computer technology, and a robust online offering in favor of sticking to the things it does best: creating experiences that no other company in the world can deliver.

The Wii accomplished that goal with a degree of success few predicted. Its introduction of motion-based gaming to the modern era has changed game controllers for the foreseeable future, and prompted both Sony and Microsoft to respond with motion technology of their own. The two console manufacturers sought to capture users in the emerging gaming markets that opened thanks to Nintendo's vision and spectacular marketing.

For all the success and innovation the Wii brought, its lack of computing power has aged the console at a considerably faster rate than its competition. In a world where HDTVs fly off the shelves at breakneck speeds and an Internet connection is becoming an essential home utility, the Wii tech has been falling behind - fast.

To compound the problem, third-party publishers had to essentially design games from the ground up for the Wii. They also had to compete with market-dominating first-party Nintendo software, and reap few rewards from the investments they made on the Sony and Microsoft consoles, leading to a platform that publishers simply could not invest much in. After a few failed attempts, many chose to forgo publishing their biggest games on the Wii altogether.

Sony and Microsoft are not in this same position. Don't get me wrong, they have their own challenges going forward that they must address to survive, but console technology isn't one of them. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners have anywhere from two to three years before they may even see the next wave of technology, much less plug it into their TVs.

This gap gives Nintendo's new console a chance to catch up in the technology race, and more importantly, it gives Nintendo a chance to change the game again. But this time Nintendo needs to create a platform where third-party companies can make great games and make money, or the company will once again find itself as the sole provider of innovative software, surrounded by a sea of subpar products from publishers just trying pick up the scraps.

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