Waller

Finally, our presidential candidates are beginning to remember the fundamental qualities that make America great.

I don't think we need another company like Apple in the console making business, unless Apple used the same level of quality they apply in making there computer hardware, employed dedicated skilled experts in making consoles and games and had good quality first party and exclusive third party games. The Apple console would have to be very innovative, another plain old PS3 or Xbox console wouldn't be enough because we have seen it all before. I don't think Apple is going to enter the console business because they would have pull a a whole lot off, (even though I am pretty sure a hell of a lot of Apple Fan-boys would buy anything Apple excretes) Apple is trying to take on the gaming market from a different angle, by making cheap, affordable games available on there popular iPhone and iPad for casual gamers to enjoy. l don't think "hardcore" or more dedicated gamers are going to stop buying consoles because of this anytime soon.

Apple really doesn't have as much experience with games as many people are giving them credit for. They do not develop any first-party games, and it seems that everyone has forgotten that the iPod Touch and iPhone did not even ship with an app store of any kind in their first year on the market. iOS (iPhone OS at the time) became a gaming platform entirely by accident - Apple didn't do much other than provide software development kits for apps that some companies decided to make a few games with. Next thing you know, 99-cent experiences became one of the leading reasons for people to get an iOS device - but the platform's third-party developers are responsible for that, not Apple themselves.

For Apple to design a good, competitive console, they would need to focus an immense amount of resources on that. Not to mention that they'd be competing with three companies that have all been in the console race for at least a decade, and are extremely well established in it. Add to that that Apple do not have any experience developing first-party games (which, let's face it, they'll need at least some of) and it just doesn't seem like the greatest business idea for them. The closest I can possibly see them coming to a game console is if they made the app store available on the Apple TV, and let you use iOS devices as controllers for it. But even that won't come close to the depth of the experiences that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo can offer.

Lol no, it would be a FPS: First Person Stabber

Super Mario on Wii U should be the epitome of all Super Mario Bros. games. With the dawn of 1080p HD graphics, the world can be larger than ever before, and the textures can be photo-realistic. I do love a traditional cartoony Mario game, but I believe that Super Mario Wii U should be the Twilight Princess of the Mario series. Mario would appear like he did in Brawl, and the Mushroom Kingdom would appear darker than before. I'd also like to see an improvement in water physics so when Mario jumps into a lake, it makes a realistic splash. An open world game like Super Mario Sunshine would be the best way to handle it, but with a bigger world than Delfino Plaza.

Here's an example of how I want the game to be, using my own idea for the game's intro:

Mario is asleep when he suddenly hears a knock at the door. He gets up to find Toadsworth covered in rain water and panting heavily. He explains to Mario that the Koopa Army is attacking Toadstool Castle, and that he is the only hope for them. Mario immediately dashes out into his front yard, where a pipe is seen at the end of it. This area is for Mario to get used to the controls, as he can run around the entire yard, change the camera angle, and even jump onto the roof to find a secret item. The rain pounds on the swaying grass as Mario leaps into the pipe and is spat out in the middle of a war-torn field. This field lies in front of Toadstool Castle, which is about 50 feet away at the moment.

Mario begins to run, but is suddenly met by a wave of Goombas and Koopas charging at him. This is where Mario learns how to attack enemies, similar to how he does in most games. As Mario runs through the long field and finally reaches the castle, a large black beast made of dark matter bursts through the stone walls. In one of its hands is Princess Peach, and in the other hand, surprisingly, is Bowser. Apparently, Bowser was kidnapping the Princess when the monster suddenly appeared through the floor and grabbed them both. The monster is enormous, and it opens a dimensional rift which sucks it inside. The player gains control of Mario again at this time, and is left free to explore the environment (consisting of everywhere he's previously been) before leaping into the portal and beginning the adventure inside this creature's mysterious dimension.

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I have the same worries as you, I was pretty picked off that such a great game like Dead or Alive barely made the top ten. Its features and graphics are amazing so it was such a shame. I'm still getting Spotpass challenges to this day. However Ocarina of Time shot straight to the top of the charts... a remake...barely using any features... I'm not saying it's not a great game but Dead or Alive deserved better sales. I don't see how people can complain about Petz and Cooking Mama if they aren't willing to buy third party titles that are done well.

Also, Batman: Arkham City (PS360), Metro: Last Light  (PS360), Darksiders  (PS360). If people can buy these games on their own console what reason do they have to buy the Wii U? The only way is if developers make these games really special by utilizing the Wii U controller in brilliant ways.

You just got pwned! FTW!

One-time. You can only download it from minecraft.net.

Well, there goes my chances of playing(parents don't like using their credit card over the internet).
http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com

Warning! Massive post incoming!

Been reading the boards here and there for a few weeks now, saw a sprinkling of interest - and not just here, but on other Nintendo forums too - in some kind of online virtual Mii world community for an interesting change in interface, and sometimes for Animal Crossing to be turned into the kind of new social platform I'm going to be discussing here instead. I've been gradually formulating some ideas on that sort of thing over the past several years, but haven't really posted them online in too much detail before, let alone where people would read them. So here I am, about to dump lots of text and example links on you - you've been warned. Read on if you're interested in this sort of thing, at any rate.

My goal here is to avoid slamming you with unreadable walls of texts, so I've done my best to break down my thoughts - as numerous and layered as these ideas have become as a result of years of overthinking - into categories and smaller paragraphs here for handy dandy easy reading and digestion.

Let's start with something, and talk about-

Standard Online Features
It's no secret that Nintendo's approach to online has needed a lot of work. As of E3 and beyond, it's been established that they're working with third parties to get together something that can rival their competitors for a while now and will be continuing to work on providing an optimal online experience on the Wii U, after a slower start on the 3DS. (Though granted, the 3DS is Nintendo's first system to have a game with online play at launch.) After the 3DS simplified the friend code system, friend codes are out entirely, and we saw them going as far as to include Skype-like video chat in the Wii U concept trailer at E3. For the first time, really, we're starting to see real third party excitement for Nintendo's online system, between the improved 3DS system (Which can obviously still use a lot more features and fleshing out, and with any luck, we'll see that in the future too.) and still-developing Wii U system. Let's take a moment to look at a few features that should be comfortable locks, given Nintendo's emboldened online ambitions, which third parties should help them achieve.

- Friend Lists/Communication: We've had friend lists since the DS and Wii, and a unified one for an entire platform for the first time since the 3DS. On the former platforms, we just had in-game communication in some cases, and otherwise Wiimail. So far on the 3DS, all we have are status messages: a welcome addition, but it shouldn't be any big deal to add at least text chat to the features - accessible while gaming, like the browser, game notes, and friend list - on there, and voice chat on at least a game-by-game basis, with perhaps a Wii Speak Channel-esque channel dedicated to voice chat calling. Pulling both text and audio chat off universally should be a piece of cake on the Wii U between the controller touchscreen and built-in microphone - along with any inevitable headset releases - and then there's the aforementioned Skype-style video calls in the Wii U concept video. Some notable strides, to be sure, though work still needs to be done on the 3DS.

- Profiles: The ideal is for a new centralized profile system on the Wii U to be something that could be extended to the 3DS through a firmware update and all future Nintendo platforms, ensuring ease of ability to transfer friend lists from platform to platform without having to deal with the hassle of rebuilding friend lists each time a new platform launches. Likewise, it should be easy to view friends' profiles along with your own, the profiles including - going on things spoken of so far - stat tracking, achievements, leaderboard positions, game progress, and so on. Pretty much anything and everything the profiles would track and allow you to display on the internet, Mario Kart trophies and license completion progress, Smash Bros. challenge/trophy collection progress, and so on, for example.

The importance of having a very simple, accessible image and text oriented alternative to the virtual world for those not interested in this sort of content at all, making it a big feature, but still optional for those not interested, like the ability to turn off achievement alerts and so forth. When the new Wii U online system gets going next year, the next for a big 3DS firmware update to let the 3DS connect with your profile for the new features and contribute too, perhaps patches for older games to add achievements and profile connectivity on an optional basis, expansion of the Activity Log to accommodate the new achievements and stats and directly connect with your online profile to upload stats, while giving you an in-system place to send these things so you don't have to be connected to the internet at all times for these things. Viewing friends' profiles with their game collections and, as Ubisoft has touched on with Wii U online talk already, achievements, game progress, and more. Already seeing achievement systems in-game in numerous Wii and DS games and now in 3DS games too, a unified profile to connect them to is pretty much inevitable.

- Accessibility: To get the mass market online where no other major platform in gaming has succeeded before, ease of accessibility cannot be emphasized enough. Online features and functionality have to be easy to get into, comfortable to use, and ideally possess some sort of addictive community quality to explore. This is a big part of the virtual social Mii world I'm going to be explaining here.

The idea here is to make one's username and Mii into Nintendo gamers' singular major online identity, ideally allowing for multiple user identities per platform, and a shared interconnected virtual social Mii world driven by the users on each console, further grown and developed by SpotPass/WiiConnect24-style received data and content over the internet.

Nintendo Gets Social / The Virtual Lives of Miis
To step back for just a moment again - a relevant detour, I promise - we should look at Nintendo's history of social development. Where the DS and Wii were largely underdeveloped on that front, with minimal real social content, online channels oddly free of any kind of friend list connection or much real use of the central Wii system address book, we still saw a few games - like Animal Crossing and Magician's Quest - with at least some meaningful social elements. Likewise, we saw the seeds that led to major 3DS innovation in the likes of Nintendogs' Bark Mode and Dragon Quest IX's canvassing, connecting with other players directly to share and exchange data. And now we have one of Nintendo's most oddly social elements yet as a cornerstone of the 3DS in StreetPass, with the StreetPass Mii Plaza that can hold hundreds of Miis and serves as a hub for some small social games and Mii customization item collection. This looks likely to expand in time as even Iwata has recently mentioned the likelihood of there being more StreetPass games due in part to calls for them directly within the Nintendo offices. As has been discussed on this forum too, it would make sense to have StreetPass connect to a larger Nintendo profile so that the Wii U and future Nintendo consoles could take advantage of StreetPass features through the latest portables, too. SpotPass has potential to serve as a great delivery system for the passive downloading of social online content as well, to passively upload updates to your own Nintendo profile and download friends' latest information as well, keeping a regular exchange of information going between friends' usernames and hardware in their networks of friend lists. This was something WiiConnect24 could have done, but its potential largely went untapped - something that will hopefully be resolved with the Wii U.

But as it stands, Nintendo has us building online friend lists with simplistic profile cards and collecting tags with shared basic information and game content with people on the street now. While not a whole lot can be done with either yet, it's a notable foray by Nintendo into the social realm. Iwata himself recently commented on the importance of social networking for their forthcoming new online system on the Wii U. Miis are at the center of all their social advances with the 3DS, and it seems obvious that they would be with the Wii U's leaps forward in online as well. Even Miyamoto has stated an interest in the possibility of an online virtual world of sorts for Miis in the past. It only seems like a natural evolution.

I can't be the only one who's enjoyed watching Miis wander around their plaza since the Wii launched, watching their varied behavior, minor interactions, and feeling like there was the potential for something amazing in that. Nintendo probably wouldn't have made the Mii Plaza such a lively little place - despite how disappointingly barren it was beyond the Miis themselves - if they didn't have ambitions to bring the Mii world fully to life, and we've seen plenty of evidence of that since. There's Wuhu Island, populated by Miis from our Mii Channels and the Check Mii Out Channel online in Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus, with huge numbers of Miis simply wandering around and living their lives, adding tremendously to the atmosphere and overall aesthetic feel of the world in these games. Nintendo made a big deal out of Wuhu Island's debut, though we've never gotten to really freely fully explore it of our own volition. Then Personal Trainer: Walking took place in another part of the Mii world - a warm, friendly place to be - and as you used the application/game throughout the year, you'd watch your Mii go through the seasons as backgrounds and environments changed, as well as a little 3D city setting that you would gradually light up at night in the treadmill mode, converting your pedometer steps into watts. PT:W undoubtedly contributed significantly to the decision to include a pedometer in the 3DS - along with the success of the PokeWalkers, of course - and the system could certainly benefit from the introduction of more of its little health-promoting step-based metagames and features. And even Nintendogs + Cats has significantly stepped up its social and virtual Mii world elements by actually turning the game's setting into a pleasant little town populated by Miis and allowing you to exchange Miis and dog data with other players you StreetPass with, encountering them on the street walking their dog. And otherwise, as you go on walks, you'll see other Miis taking walks, socializing, and so forth as a little bit of background detail making the world feel more alive. And then there's the big ones that never left Japan.

The Wii no Ma channel was all about streaming videos for the Japanese audience, but on top of that, it was a bit of a relaxing, cozy, chilled out virtual home like we hadn't seen for the Miis before. You threw a group of Miis - family, friends, etc. - together into a virtual Japanese apartment living room, with real time day/night cycles and lots of relaxing music, which was especially nice and moody at night. When not interacting with any of the channel's features - video streaming, celebrity concierge Miis, coupons to send to your DS, sponsor interaction/marketing/surveys, and more - you could sit around and relax listening to the music and watching your Miis come in and out of the room, sitting around the table and leading their daily lives in this little virtual home. There was minimal customization at most, with a few things changing here and there like the advertisement poster on the wall by the door. You could completely pan around the living room and enjoy subtle atmospheric and visual elements like: changing weather when it rained and snowed outside, occasional holiday elements like visible koi no bori carp streamers appearing outside the windows, a seeming very subtle changing of the seasons outside the windows in the Mii city, and the lighting up of said far off cityscape outside the window as night fell.

You couldn't leave the living room to see the bedrooms your Miis went back and forth between, and only the celebrity concierge Miis came through the front door to visit. Still, you could watch throughout the day as Miis went about various little activities, from eating meals around the table to channel surfing to playing a little golf in the room with a cup and ball and even celebrating each others' birthdays with cake - all based on input birthday, personality, interests, and such information to define each Mii as more of an individual. This in itself stepped up the Miis' virtual life/world elements in ways they hadn't been before and added a whole new relaxing aquarium-like element to the channel as you watched your Miis live their cozy little lives in that room when you weren't interacting with any of the channel's content. Notably since its inception, the only Japanese video streaming channel on the Wii - the Minna no Theater Channel - has shut down, and Wii no Ma received updates to add a theater room you could visit to stream inexpensive paid on demand content while gathered around in there, as well as a little virtual shopping mall of sorts selling, among other things, personalized Mii stamps. There were some brief hints of plans to bring the channel west, followed by silence, and obviously the channel never leaving Japan. While it's hard to say how the video streaming service would have done all that well outside of Japan, particularly up against services like Netflix, I suspect that the channel would have caught on for its very warm, pleasant, appealing virtual life elements with the Miis, and can't help but feel that those elements would be best applied elsewhere - hence again, the point of this whole ridiculously large post -  more dedicated to an online social life with friends and family. Interestingly, Nintendo's first 3DS video streaming service launched last month in Japan as the Itsu no Ma ni Terebi application, which lacks any Mii virtual life element. This makes me think that as much as they've been exploring it lately as a concept, they have plans for that sort of thing elsewhere, out of place as it probably was in a video streaming channel. Of course, Nintendo Video is about to launch in both Japan and Europe and will undoubtedly arrive in North America soon too, and no one's seen the interface in that yet. Somehow, I suspect that won't have any Mii virtual life elements either, simply going on the name - 'Anytime Television' and 'Nintendo Video' don't quite evoke what 'Wii Room' did.

Finally, there's the most concentrated Mii virtual life software that Nintendo's released yet: Tomodachi Collection. For those unfamiliar, Tomodachi Collection is a virtual life game more akin to The Sims than Animal Crossing. The game's set around a huge apartment building that up to 100 Miis can live in, making for a very bustling, busy world. Though due to hardware limitations, you can only look into one Mii's apartment - and only really customize it with one set look rather than lots of individual furniture, though there's a lot of variety in the looks you can give Miis' apartments - and usually only a very few Miis hang out at any given time. Still, you set their personalities with a variety of information to make them into interesting individuals, watch them go about their lives, interact and play games with them, and give them food, clothing, and more to raise their fulfillment levels while they make friends, fall in love, possibly get married, and more. The game is mostly set around the interiors of the huge number of apartments and a few locations to play around with and purchase things at on the Miis' more urban island compared to the likes of Wuhu Island. In many ways, it's an incredible game-play oriented evolution of the virtual life elements of Wii no Ma, and the perfect basis for a much bigger online virtual world social setup, balancing single player and multiplayer.

You can exchange Miis with friends in Tomodachi Collection for more meaningful, substantive content to each Mii than what we otherwise get out of exchanging friend information and Miis for friend lists on the Wii and 3DS so far. Tomodachi Collection was a huge hit in Japan, and a game or service like it would undoubtedly be a smash hit in the west as well, considering the strong mainstream popularity of both the Miis and virtual life games like The Sims. Games and social networks built around concepts like this could pull off much more on the 3DS - and especially the Wii U - considering the massive leaps in power both have over the DS, while the game's an impressive higher-end DS game to begin with, with much more to do with 100 Miis than either the Wii or 3DS's respective Mii Channels. Incredibly impressive for what it does in the face of its ambitious concept and the DS's hardware limitations, Tomodachi Collection - 'Friend Collection' - has it in itself as a concept to become something so much bigger. A significant piece of software - the most substantive Mii-based game by miles - that takes a real leap toward the Miis beginning to reach for their true potential. And part of that potential lies in full Mii integration as a standard online avatar system and the exploration of a virtual Mii space and world for each player, growing and evolving through online interactions, optimized for online socialization.

Recently, Satoru Iwata himself has commented on social networking and the need for that in Nintendo platforms. Facebook connectivity of some sort seems likely and advised - the ability to upload gaming pictures, screenshots, and so forth from while hanging out with friends and tagging them seems like something that would catch on. The key to taking online not just to heights far above the clumsy place where Nintendo is now, but to reaching the mass market and getting them online when the majority don't tend to go online on consoles or portables, is all about the ease of accessibility, appealing features, and giving users reasons to stay hooked and keep coming back. Ultimately, to get the Farmville/social gaming crowd hooked on profile and virtual world building, create a system as easy to get addicted to and as accessible as Facebook, a universal profile that people have fun with and feel comfortable with. Something loaded with free activities, minigames, metagames, and rewards to keep them around. With an emphasis on friends/family connection and lots of affecting each other's experiences and social spheres.

At Last, Miitropolis
Finally we arrive at the central point of discussion I've been building to, a major online cornerstone concept I call "Miitropolis." Imagine a virtual world in the vein of Tomodachi Collection and Wii no Ma, but one in which you can enter and explore every building and area, and in which you can go outside, fully immerse yourself in the environment, and enjoy the scenery, the sounds, the atmosphere, and the hustle and bustle of daily life for the Miis populating the city. Clouds cross the sky, and weather varies. Sometimes it rains or storms, and Miis rush for indoors in cars and carry umbrellas. It snows at times during the winter, and the city's inevitably covered in snow for the duration of the season. The Miis bundle up for the season and stick to warmer places. Any outdoor pools are closed, but ice skating rinks and such become points of interest. Coffee houses are especially busy. This is your personal city for yourself and anyone else with an account playing on your Wii U. You build and personalize it yourselves, and populate it with family and friends, connecting with their data.

The concept is in part inspired by the MetropolisMania series, the first two games of which were brought west by Natsume on the PS2, while the DS incarnation sadly stayed in Japan and the PSP third official entry stayed there as well, due to how incredibly niche the series is. This series would probably have a good shot at finding an audience on Nintendo platforms in the west if they'd make more games for them and they'd get localized. They're sort of Sim City lite with a touch of Animal Crossing - you invite people to move to the city and build all kinds of homes, skyscrapers, businesses, restaurants, shops, and more to build a functioning, happy society. You wander the streets and get to watch all the families and people go about their daily lives, going to and from work and school, running errands, going out for meals, hanging out with friends, and more, while gradually building your friendship levels with them so you can eventually call on them on later maps to move into later towns and help solve problems there. There's a bunch of real Japanese licensed businesses in the second game and onward in Japan as well, some of which remained in the western release, like UNIQLO, MOS Burger, Yoshinoya, and others. Pizza Hut, KFC, Toys R Us, and some other western brands are in the Japanese games, but had to be turned into generic versions of their respective places for the western release. You feel like you're really connected to the cities you're building, and the world feels alive, while it's easy to get attached to the NPCs through your little Engrishy conversations with them, each person having their own name, appearance, and distinct characteristics. This kind of personalized world building would be perfect for social Mii experiences on the Wii U and beyond. And both the MetropolisMania series and its gameplay style/aesthetics are perfect for Nintendo platforms and Miis.

In your Wii U system's MiiTropolis - there would be some kind of similar function or connected offshoot on the 3DS - you would either live in an apartment building or hotel (Like in Wii no Ma) or have some kind of house with a certain amount of space to worth with and potentially increase. You could possibly opt to share space and live together with family members with profiles/accounts on the same system or live separately, but still designate your Miis' relationship when setting their personality and relationships info (Like in Tomodachi Collection) to family, so your Miis would visit each other more regularly and during the holidays. Similarly, family and friend designations could be given to Miis from such people with presences in your city via the passive internet connection (Such as WiiConnect24). You build up your personal space with a variety of furniture and items earned, found, and acquired through meta-games and minigames, through playing games (Unlocked through achievements or game completion), and otherwise purchased with a meta-currency like the 3DS's Play Coins, which would have some kind of Wii U variation to encourage further social interaction and interconnectedness with friends and family. Unlike Playstation Home, you wouldn't be spending real money on digital clothing and furniture. Likewise, you could spend Play Coins on new types of buildings and places to do activities alone and with friends, and for Miis to congregate, building parks, the aforementioned pools and skating rinks, statues of characters from games you've played or beaten, and all other sorts of things you could imagine to personalize your own city.

Your personal home building would be sent to friends online via WiiConnect24 passively, and likewise their living spaces with furniture layouts, profile info, and personality, etc. information for their Miis would be sent to your Wii U, and you'd get to choose to place where in your city they'd live. Their Miis would have daily lives and routines like yours does in their cities, controlled by the AI based on the personality and hobby information they input for their Miis. You'd find them running around town going to various buildings, hanging out at the park, perhaps dropping by the beach or arcade, stopping for lunch at a burger joint, and so forth. As their Miis' outfits and accessories change, as do their living spaces, you could see what games they were playing and the progress made reflected directly in them and have some minor interaction with their AI-controlled NPC Miis. But you could also connect with each other directly - like in Animal Crossing - to take over your respective Miis and visit each others' cities, see how your layouts and decorations and such differ, and do various little social activities together in parks and other places, like games of tag, squirt gun battles, snowball fights, laser tag, sledding, scavenger hunts, air hockey, and more, with up to a certain number of friends visiting each host's city at any given time. Text and voice chat would be natural inclusions here. There would be little rewards for each of the possible social activities, like collectible content, clothing, and additional decorations and furniture for your home living space or city as well. Like with the StreetPass games, lots of little forms of encouragement for social interaction between Nintendo gamers online.

The goal would be for, in contrast to Sony's Home, for Nintendo and the Miis to have a warm, friendly, pleasant, and all-around inviting place for Nintendo gamers of all sorts to hang out, from the more traditional and addicted to the more 'casual,' with a nice way for families and friends to potentially keep in touch and connected in a personal way over longer distances.

Various companies could have specialized buildings as well, which you could choose whether or not to invite into your Miitropolis. You could keep it smaller and cozier with just family and friends, or build it up to something with hundreds to thousands of Miis in time through a larger friend list full of people you only know online and various company buildings. Nintendo could have their own building with perhaps Reggie, Miyamoto, Iwata, Mario, Link, and so on Miis, the latest Nintendo news available there, and little activities and mini/metagames to do involving Nintendo characters, games, and worlds for little rewards for that, and other companies could do the same. All sorts of game developers and publishers could make buildings that you could choose to bring to your city to explore and interact with, marketing their games while giving you free content incentives in your town to bring their building in and check it out, and it could even possibly be an effective way for smaller developers and publishers to have a chance at reaching a wider player audience and speaking to them directly. Non-gaming companies could potentially pay Nintendo to set up their own spaces as well, like with their Wii no Ma parade of sponsors with their own small spaces set around tables that you could visit. A Burger King building could feature the King in Mii form and be an eating establishment the Miis in your city might visit daily to eat, Adult Swim would undoubtedly set up a cool building with posters and images advertising their current schedule and latest shows (Perhaps a big Meatwad on top of the building, posters along the sides for Childrens Hospital, Delocated, and so on.) with cool music playing inside and some neat things to do, Netflix could have a virtual theater of sorts to advertise the service, and the possibilities are practically endless. This sort of in-social-network marketing could be effective for the companies pursuing it and a great way for game developers and publishers to advertise upcoming games very directly to fans, but it would be entirely optional, as a user could choose not to bring any of these buildings in at all, or simply bring them in, earn any extra content there, then get rid of them again.

Iwata also recently talked about intellectually stimulating gaming with the example of their discussing letting you visit what sounds like virtual recreations of real world international museums, perhaps roaming through them with your Miis. Something like this could be a perfect addition to the Miitropolis concept - one or more museum buildings with access to one or all the international museums they'd offer, and you could have fun exploring these museums and checking out their exhibits either alone or with friends, maybe dropping by the museum gift shop and dropping a few play coins on some souvenirs like famous paintings (a la Animal Crossing) to hang on the wall or some other interesting things like a variety of knickknacks or paraphernalia to stash and collect in your apartment or home.

To build on the Wii no Ma shopping section, Nintendo could perhaps look into a partnership with Amazon so users could duck into a shopping mall or shopping arcade in-town and pop into a shopping area to potentially order real things online, or use a phone in the apartment or drop by the food court - where NPC Miis might also go for lunch at times - and set up a Delivery Channel frontend there after the Delivery Channel on the Wii never made it out of Japan, and perhaps make it possible to order pizza and other things from any local restaurants (Based on the channel knowing the region you live in) right from the comfort of the TV screen or controller screen from your couch.



If they wanted to take things even further, they could create a sort of Foursquare/digital Foursquare-esque metagame both within the virtual city, online spaces, and on the 3DS in an update when linking up to various locations' WiFi hotspots on SpotPass to encourage people to get out with their 3DS and link up to more hotspots and otherwise explore the virtual Mii city and online spaces as much as possible with rewards for that too.

New content would ideally be regularly available and unlockable from Nintendo and companies releasing their own buildings to add to your city with a few Miis and activities of their own, adding more 'real world' color and flavor without the sterile 'realism' of Playstation Home, better fitting into the inviting world of the Miis. When the holidays roll around, they could release all sorts of decorations and different buildings could have their own ways of celebrating, with plenty of things to spend Play Coins on to fully decorate your city for any holidays you celebrate or want to celebrate, putting up lights and more, with perhaps regional content for different holidays, as well as universal things like fireworks. Getting together with friends in the summer to shoot off digital fireworks while chatting could be a fun way to spend an evening.

Rain and snow would fall, seasons would pass, the options for activities would change as certain places were either available or unavailable at certain times of the year, and mood would be paramount. You could wander through the park - perhaps one with a design based on the 3DS's StreetPass Mii Plaza park - and watch the falling leaves. Or stroll through the lit up city at night during the dead of winter as snow falls and Miis' breath is visible, watching the Miis stroll down the sidewalks while putting up decorations. This would be a personal, cozy world to sink into and relax. Someplace to feel at home digitally. A real living, breathing social network world embodying fully the social nature and spirit of the 'Cafe' namesake for the Wii U project, and could at least in part be extended to the 3DS as well.

You'd go from a small neighborhood or city block populated by a few Miis and little service buildings to explore and interact with, where the Miis would live their lives and go for meals and recreation. In time, you'd have a bustling Mii metropolis with lots of towering skyscrapers that look beautiful lit up at night. Perhaps a hotel with celebrity concierge Miis like the Wii no Ma channel in Japan. And all ideally done within a reasonable amount of storage space, doable between the Wii U's powerful hardware and the building and world visual designs intended to fit the Miis more, rather than extremely realistic graphics with massive texture files. Something for the 'We'/'Wii' and 'You'/'U.' Everything connected - family, friends, and any companies chosen by the users. It just seems like a natural evolution for the StreetPass Mii Plaza and Mii Plazas in general. To finally give these Miis lives to live without trapping them in little plazas, while acting fully as user avatars. A concept like this could fully realize the full potential of both Miis and passive online connections in the vein of WiiConnect24 and SpotPass, none of these things having come close to their full potential just yet. And like Wii no Ma, a virtual Mii world - perhaps set to a mode where the camera randomly pans around the city to look at different scenes going on in their lives - there could be a sort of Fireplacing-esque appeal to something like this. The kind of software you could leave running on your TV the background as a source of relaxation. And as Nintendo has shown with their previous Vitality Sensor plans and 'Wii Relax' software, as well as games like Pilotwings, Endless Ocean, and the Wii no Ma channel itself, chilled out relaxation software is on their radar.

Mii dogs and cats have become more common in games featuring Miis too - allowing them to appear more often at the user's volition seems like it would be an appealing little addition too, for their Mii to have a little virtual Mii pet or two in their home and environment. They'd make a welcome addition to a Mii city too.

We've seen relaxing avatar-filled - and even Mii-compatible! - open world games on the Wii before too, in Namco Bandai's We Ski series and the same team's upcoming Go Vacation this fall. This sort of wonderful atmosphere is very doable on the Wii - at times a little reminiscent of the likes of Elebits, Shenmue, and NiGHTS in how welcoming and magical it can be - and should be even more so on the 3DS and Wii U. The sort of feel and atmosphere more games and virtual life software could use. These few games in particular are all set in very ambitious living, breathing avatar-based worlds that even outdo Nintendo's own open world Mii game efforts so far, with far more exploration. And even they're not full adventure games or anything like that, and you can't really explore inside all the buildings or anything like that. But games like this, as inviting and fun as they are, should be a challenge to Nintendo to step everything up with their Miis and outdo them in amazing ways. To fully seek out the full potential of the Miis. In the meantime, I can't wait to see what else this Namco Bandai team in particular ends up bringing to the 3DS and Wii U in the future.

No, my thoughts aren't done yet. There's just one last section to go, and then you're free!

Social Online Spaces
Finally, we've probably all heard about things like Google+'s online hangouts now, encouraging friends and family to casually get together in group webcam chats. It's hard to say whether something exactly like that would be viable on the Wii U, given that the video chat footage we've seen so far just had a single other person's webcam going to the tablet controller. That said, on top of being able to visit friends' cities and invite them to hang out in your own, in the 'Cafe' spirit of further openness, you could get buildings for your city that would take you to public moderated online spaces where people not on each others' friend lists could meet and chat. These spaces would naturally be parental control locked to keep children out, and there would be very specific social guidelines and report and ignore/mute functions to deal with inappropriate behavior and ultimately maintain more of a warm, friendly environment for older gamers to meet up and chat in.

I like to envision these as online virtual nightclubs, karaoke places, lodges with perhaps snowy scenery outside, and of course the obvious, virtual cafes. It's one of the first things that sprang to mind upon the official reveal of the Project Cafe codename earlier this year, and Nintendo could undoubtedly moderate such text and voice chat rooms well enough to keep them a clean, pleasant place to be. I can easily imagine friends meeting up in online virtual spaces and using various chat methods to converse, then using things like that and the system's internal mail system, IM, etc. to plan out gaming sessions and jump into games of all sorts together, along with a simpler menu-based alternative for those who don't want to get into the open virtual world and enjoy its atmosphere as much. That would keep these kinds of online social features accessible to everyone while creating a warm, friendly, inviting place that encourages you to get addicted and come back regularly and explore and do everything you can, with an addiction and ever growing and changing world to reflect a Facebook-like experience, while tapping into the kinds of appeals that made Wii no Ma and Tomodachi Collection huge hits in Japan and still makes The Sims absolutely massive here. A central online hub and cornerstone to our online experience and identity, more than just a text and icon loaded stat-covered profile.

They could tap into the kind of base that's made the likes of Farmville so insanely huge on Facebook through it, maybe let you share snapshots of your Miitropolis directly on Facebook (As Nintendo's getting into that kind of integration now too) and encourage people to really get into building their worlds together.

If Nintendo approached this right and fully evolved the world of the Miis into the central hub of our online experience on their platforms across the Wii U, 3DS, and future consoles and portables, they could legitimately revolutionize the online gaming and social experiences and fully bring to the mainstream the idea of a virtual avatar world and chat system around the whole 'Cafe' concept where others have failed. It'd make for a great marketing hook, too - to check out and build your city at your own leisure for fun, get hooked on socializing and keeping up with friends on it (Perhaps even directly linking it with Facebook via an app), then come in to the cafe and meet up with your friends, chat for a while, then maybe jump into a Wii U bowling game online together, take some digital photos with your 3DS camera or Wii U pad camera, post them online and remember the fun you had, etc. That kind of thing could be killer and key to getting the audience online like a gaming audience has never been online before.

Nintendo seems to at least be somewhat headed in a direction like this, as my examples have attested. Whether they'd ever fully do something as ambitious and amazing as this is hard to say, but knowing Nintendo, probably unlikely at this point. Still, with how serious they're getting about online now and the third party element in pushing them into modernity with their online and all the interest they've shown in things like this, the sky's the limit, and we could definitely be pleasantly surprised.

Alternatives to Please Everyone
As just a final note, obviously, not everyone wants to spend all their time running around on foot or playing around with virtual worlds like this. And for those people, there should still always be a very intuitive menu system much like the Wii's channels menu to ensure that all these features can be ignored by the Wii U player who can't stand virtual world content and doesn't like the Miis - though they still probably wouldn't be able to avoid a Mii being their overall online profile avatar. Simple, intuitive alternatives will keep things user-friendly for everybody.

But like Animal Crossing, in a sense, this whole concept is all about the growing, living organic world experience based on players connecting, which will only continue to undoubtedly grow and develop in time.

Anyway, that's it. This was insanely long. Good luck getting through it. If you survive, pat yourself on the back and feel free to respond. Perhaps in a less long-winded fashion manner. My internet message board posting quota has just been met for the next decade or so.

(if you like this poem, but have nothing to say bump up the reputation in the right corner )

Sitting and waiting
Waiting for nothing 
As nothing will await me 

On the curb I wait
Wait for something 

Some hope
Some kindness 


And for a moment,
A brief moment
A flicker of hope is there waiting 

Then, I look behind me
And see the remains and ashes
The ashes of all that I ever was

The dead corpse of my memories 

I sit back down
Waiting 

Waiting for nothing

Get ready for a proper Feldian-length post, everyone.

-snip-

That's sounds unnecessarily complicated. See the little sync buttons on the tablets and the console? Just press both at the same time and you're connected. Easy.

I have my doubts about whether WLAN would actually be fast enough to withstand the connection. Doing some quick calculations, streaming a 1280x720 image to the controller at 60 FPS will require roughly 158 MB of bandwidth per second. Add a fairly standard 16-bit 44100 Hz stream of stereo sound to that, as well as sensor, touchscreen, and button readings, and we're at around 160 MB per second, give or take a megabyte.

So-called gigabit WLAN (the fastest kind we've got) tops out at 125 MB per second. Unless compression is applied, which would degrade video and sound quality (as well as potentially introduce lag, use additional processing power, and make the controller more expensive because they'll have to include decoding hardware in it), WiFi just won't be able to take it.

It's likely that the technology at work is actually WirelessHD, or a derivative thereof (if you're confused, WirelessHD is a wireless standard for the transmission of HD video - basically, it's a wireless version of HDMI). Its bandwidth can be anywhere from 512 MBps to just over 3 GBps, depending on its implementation. If our data stream is 160 MBps, 4 tablets would require 640 MB of bandwidth per second - that's comfortably within the range of WirelessHD. So I doubt that bandwidth is the issue.


More likely, there are probably two reasons Nintendo may not be so hot about multiple tablet controllers. For one, those tablets look pretty darned expensive. I imagine they would go for anywhere from $80 to $120. Buying three more of them in addition to a $300-$400 console would cost a small fortune - and Nintendo has never been a company about charging outrageous prices for hardware (except maybe just a little bit with the 3DS).

Second, I think a lot of people aren't realizing how much sheer power would be necessary to deliver four 720p images in addition to a 1080p one, at 60 FPS, while also calculating everything else in a game like AI and whatnot. The console will have to render just under 6 million pixels per frame - 60 times per second. Point is, you're asking for an awful lot of performance by asking for four tablets. The amount of graphics hardware they'd have to cram into the console for it to be able to handle all that would bring the cost up to what many will probably think is an outrageous level. Worse yet, a huge part of the console's power will remain unused whenever you play single-player games - the cost premium that would be necessary to support four tablets would be an unnecessary expense in the eyes of those who play games mostly for personal enjoyment than for multiplayer (myself included).

I don't know where your getting your ideas from but they are wayyyy off base. The Vita is miles ahead of the 3DS in graphical capability and is only behind the PS3 in the amount of background detail that can be displayed. Kojima showed MGS4 on Vita without downgrading graphics at all.

Cool. The main difference between the Wii and PS3 is HD, though. Which is moot on a handheld. The Gamecube could do Anti-Aliasing and background things that the PS2 couldn't do; Yet you once claimed that the graphics of the two were practically the same?

Ummmmmmm....what? The PSV games are Sequels or Ports? All on PS3 as well? The franchises are on PS3 but the games are entirely new, none are ports and none are "sequels" but independent games in the universe of the franchises (similar to what God of War on the PSP was). And even if they were what's your point? That's ALL That's coming to 3DS...your bias is astounding and your being blatantly hypocritical. You praise the what was it...4...5 new games Nintendo showed all coming 6 months from now for the 3DS then bash the PSVs library for being "Sequels" of established franchises when literally every one of those games Nintendo showed.....was an established franchise! lol.

Umm... What? I'M being hypocritical? I'm admitting that the 3DS has mostly remakes. However, YOU were the one who pointed that out. So I just decided to return the favor. I guess using sequel was a bad term; I'm used to using that against Shooter only fans who like to see the same game released yearly. None of the new games (Or at least, not many that were shown at E3) have exclusivity, is what I meant by port, BTW. As for Remakes, Ninty Fanboys like me (And probably a good sized chunk of the early adopters) have never owned a Sony Console, and therefore love it when developers abandon the PS2 and give an advanced port to a Ninty console

The WiiU was not a slap in the face to the PSV, now your just being absurd. The PSV isn't for playing in bed...I played my PS3 in bed...the PSV is for playing when your not at home.

It will be for playing in bed if they don't give it a 2+ hour battery life and make it pocket sized :/

And on that note, there have been some comments coming out suggesting that the WiiU remote has to be in the same room as the console to work, therefor your point is moot anyway.

Not sure how they would go about testing that. I won't doubt it, but I'll wait for an announcement from a press source and/or Nintendo.

Take the fanboy glasses off for a second and become an actual gamer that appreciates any platform from any company, you'll be glad you did;).

I do enjoy games from all companies. I play them all the time at friends houses (Though they all(Cept' one) enjoy playing my Wii much more ).


However, once people start up console wars... I have to side with Nintendo. I enjoy talking about one console or another, but once someone says 'X is better than Y' I come out, Objection!s blazing.

If there's one thing I WILL be getting next generation, you can bet your families future that it will be this.

The Super Smash Bros. series has always been great games, including the last installment and some people, singlehandedly prevents their Wii from being taken to the next store, it's that great. Super Smash Bros. Brawl may have made a few major errors (Eg. the terrible online system), but it succeed in providing a great experience overall.

If Nintendo learns from their mistakes and improve upon what they do best, the next installment will be even better then before. I will be all over it and will be buying it at all cost. So expect me to be talking about it for a long, long time.

I think that we'll see announcements regarding it in E3 2011 and if not, it will eventually come.

Let's go through all the posts first:

@Sirralart RCP120 (#8): I wouldn't mind a few more third-party characters, but in the end, as Feld0 said, this is mainly for a celebration of Nintendo's titles and games and I'd like to keep it that way. Street Fighter already have their own series, so they aren't really a good start for Capcom's characters in Super Smash Bros.

@Wertville (#14): Final Fantasy's characters are unlikely to be represented, especially considering that they went a whole generation disregarding Nintendo's platform. Plus the main games have not originated on Nintendo platforms since since March, 1994 if you consider it where Final Fantasy VI was first released. Good luck with getting any Square Enix's characters in the fourth installment.

Well that was quick, now to propose my idea for the next installment. Gotta get that done quick before the new installment spoils some of it for me.

My Ideas for Super Smash Bros. 4:

The Character Roster

* by the character name indicates unlockable players.

Mario:
Mario
Luigi
Peach
Bowser
Bowser Jr.*
Paper Mario*

Donkey Kong:
Donkey Kong
Diddy Kong
King K. Rool*

Other Mario Subseries:
Yoshi
Wario (Alternate costume same as previous game)

The Legend of Zelda:
Link
Zelda
Ganondorf*
Young Link* (Alternate costume is Toon Link)
Unknown*

Metroid:
Samus (Same alternate as before)
Ridley*

Kirby:
Kirby
Meta Knight
King Dedede
Gooey*

Star Fox:
Fox
Falco*
Wolf*
Krystal*

Pokemon:
Pikachu
Jigglypuff
Pokemon Trainer
Mewtwo*
5th Gen Pokemon Character*

F-Zero:
Captain Falcon
Samurai Gorah*

Earthbound:
Ness
Lucas*

Fire Emblem:
Ike
Marth*
Michaich*

Kid Icarus:
Pit

Pikimin:
Olimar

Golden Sun:
Issac*

Custom Robo:
Ray MK II*

Retro:
Ice Climbers
R.O.B.*
Balloon Fighter*
Mr. Game & Watch*

Third-Party:
Snake* (Representing Konami)
Sonic* (Representing Sega)
Mega Man* (Representing Capcom)
Bomberman* (Representing Hudson Soft)

Explanation (And a lot of it):

First thing we should do is to keep our expectation low. This is personally a roster I think would do great and a very satisfying one, but I have a feeling that the roster could go down to as much as 43 characters, as any of these listed could be easily omitted. That said, it will be higher then 35 characters, count on that. I expect the player roster to be anywhere between 43 and 56 characters, so a lot to work with, so my rosters works at a realistic wish list that I hope is taken into consideration.

Some of these are more or less merely suggestions from other players.

I think it's plausible to assume that all or some of the original unlockable characters will be made available from the start. Captain Falcon will almost certainly be in, so if F-zero gets a second representive, then someone should take his place an an unlockable character. I just think he makes more sense as a starter then an unlockable. Same with Ness on the latter reason, thought he should be playable from the start as well since he's more well known then Lucas. I'd be fine with Jigglypuff and Luigi being unlockable, but again, prefer them as starters.

I removed Lucario because he did not originate in a video game and as such, is the least likely out of all Brawl characters to come back; yes even less then the clone characters and third-party characters. Do some research and you'll see that he originated in an anime Pokemon movie. The rule states that no character that does not originate in a video game may make an appearance. By including Lucario, they are contradicting this rule. He may be a video game character, but he does not have video game origin. Mark my words, when the developers figure out this, he will be removed instantly with possibly no reference to him in the game. It's not something I want, but something we'll probably have to deal with.

I'm not sure if we'll get third-party characters in the game, but I'll say it's very likely that we'll see them anyway. Snake and Sonic will probably be back since Konami and Sega are producing games with both characters on Nintendo platform and Sega has remained as a consistent supporter of Nintendo. As for representatives from different companies, Capcom and Hudson Soft are the most likely since they've been regarded as Nintendo's strongest supporters throughout the years and many games they make land on Nintendo's platform. I choose Mega Man because he represents the feeling of a Nintendo character very well compared to potential third-party characters, he is the most requested 3rd party character not in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and that the majority of his games have appeared on Nintendo platform. Same with Bomberman, except that he isn't as requested, although still pretty wanted. This is, however, the part that I care the least about. As awesome as it would be to play with Snake and Sonic again and as awesome it would be to play with Mega Man and Bomberman, if they have to drop anything, this is unfortunately the place to do it as it is harder to keep third-party characters in then Nintendo characters. We'll get anything from nothing to four third-party characters here.

Now if we get all of the four playable third-party characters, either all of them should be unlockable or have just one starter. Obviously, it won't be Bomberman, but any of Solid Snake, Sonic, or Mega Man would be the possible starter. Of those, I lean towards Snake as he is the first third-party character in Brawl.

One thing I do not wish to see are non-video game characters making an appearance, mainly because there's no need to and it destroy the purpose of the series, to play with Nintendo characters. It's impossible anyway since it is clearly stated that only video game character can make an appearance and they must originate in a video game. You could argue that anime characters could get in since Lucario is in, but he technically did not originate in a video game, so as said before, expect him to not make an appearance as a playable character in the next installment. That said, if Lucario stays in the game, then that opens a new possibilities of playable characters of mainly video game characters that appeared in a different format. Obviously, Goku and Naruto stands zero chance, but a few more characters could get in, so I'm kind of hoping video game characters with different origins don't get kicked out.

While I do agree that shooters sell a lot (More than they should), I highly disagree that WRPGs dominate the market. The high-marketed WRPGs usually sell the same as the High-marketed JRPGs. In fact, the more popular WRPGs have shooter elements in them, making it much harder to say anything...

Actually, I don't think a Genre can dominate a market. Dragon Quest IX did not sell 1 million in NA and EU in less than a year because it was a JRPG. It sold because it was marketed well, something most JRPGs don't get. So while a country can dominate a genre... A genre cannot dominate a market. (Plus,  that would mean Fitness games dominate the market, which we all know is not true )

And besides, looking at the question in the form of the original statement... Most people don't buy consoles in order to buy shooter games, they buy consoles in order to play games more specific to their taste, seeing as all consoles get shooter games. Most people just buy shooter games on consoles they already own. So while CoD and MoH might not sway someone to buy a console, Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Fire Emblem, Professor Layton, Phoenix Wright, Mario, Zelda, DoA, Dynasty Warriors, ect. just might. And while you can say that many western games could do the same... There just simply aren't as many. Most of the big ones I know just go for PC, so it won't even affect the console market.




Also, if you still want to argue that the west controls the market, I would like to point in the continuing fall of the U.S. economy, as well as the recent disaster in Japan. While the U.S. may not drop too radically, the Japanese will have money pouring and flowing through the country. As we've already agreed, the next generation of games will be expensive to produce... So which country will actually be able to afford them? Hint: Not the country that has some of its states bankrupted.

"Sony and MS's consoles are going to be more powerful since they will come out after Cafe, but the gap will be small and all 3 consoles will be able to share ports unlike this generation."

That's one area where I have to disagree, I don't even view Cafe is truly ushering in the next generation of consoles because of the fact that according to most reports it's barely superior in power than the PS3...which to me makes it Nintendo's offering of a console finally worthy of the current generation whereas the Wii is more comparable to the systems of the previous generation just attaching motion controls. If Cafe truly is barely beyond the level of the PS3 that would mean that for the gap between the PS4/720 and Cafe to be minimal than Sony and Microsoft would have to make minimal advances to the power of their consoles...something I just don't see happening.

Oh really? Rumours say Nintendo is using an ATI 4850/4870 and a 3-core IBM CPU. That would make it much more powerful than PS3. So I don't know what you are talking about. There is NO feasible tech MS and Sony can use to blow away that tech especially when they'll be looking to launch at least a year after Cafe so it doesn't get two or more years on the market by itself.

If Cafe is barely more powerful than systems that were released 5 and 6 years ago than it shows that Nintendo obviously did not attempt to capitalize on advances in technological capabilities, something that Microsoft and Sony are both well known for doing and I just don't see any way that they don't do so for the 2014 consoles.

Maybe MS is well known for powerful tech, although this is only their second generation.

But Sony has never had the most powerful console in any of their previous gens. Both N64 and GC (plus XBox) were more powerful than PS1 and PS2.

This is Sony's first gen being the most powerful and it didn't end as well for them as the last ones.

Do I think they'll ignore Cafe? No, however...using the userbase as an example isn't the best way to go here. Look at the userbase of the Wii yet it can't be denied that 3rd party developers HAVE largely ignored the Wii in favor of the PS3 and the 360 and your kidding yourself if you believe that the 360 and PS3 having far superior power than the Wii isn't part of the reason for that.

It certainly isn't anything to do with ease of development for the consoles because it's well known that the PS3 is by far the most complex console to develop for yet the PS3 still has vastly superior 3rd party support (including exclusives) than the Wii.

The Xbox 360 was the base console for building games (due to the architecture) before porting to PS3. PS3 was similar in power to 360 so it was easier to port to it than Wii. Plus the combined userbase of the 360 and PS3 are more than Wii's alone.

The Wii's architecture was out-dated and almost required building the game from ground-up for it. That's why devs didn't port to it. It was too much of a hassle.

Nintendo is said to be using an easy-to-port to architecture, so Cafe won't be facing that problem. The architecture will similar to the one used for PC games and the 360, so ports will be easy.

why does the PS3, the most expensive system to develop for have a line up of 3rd party exclusives superior to that of the cheaper to develop for Wii? Your obviously overestimating the effect of development costs on a companies decision on what console to make AAA titles for.

Erm...3rd party exclusives are paid for by Sony. Devs get money to build those games. Nintendo doesn't really money-hat with 3rd parties for exclusives. They rely on their first party.

The reason is the exact same reason behind your statement that Cafe's touchscreen will lead to games the other consoles won't have. The AAA titles on the 360 and PS3 can't be on the Wii, the system simply doesn't have the power to support them. So who's to say the same won't happen again? With Cafe being barely above this generations most powerful console it would be easy for Microsoft and Sony to create consoles much more powerful than Cafe for a 2014 launch. If it happens we could once again see the power differential force developers into a position where games on the consoles from Microsoft and Sony could not be done on Cafe.

It won't happen again because, like I said before, Nintendo is using a familiar architecture and there won't be an HD gap nor a huge power gap between the consoles like this gen.

Games on 360 and PS3 CAN be put on Wii. It's just that it requires ALOT of scaling down and rebuilding  from the ground-up. That's just too much of a hassle for third parties and not worth the investment.

And even the touchscreen may not make as much of a difference as your stating, it COULD but there is no guarantee. How many quality titles were exclusive to the Wii because of the motion control innovation? Did it ensure the PS3 and 360 couldn't get some of the biggest games of the generation? In fact the exact opposite occured, 3rd party developers focused on developing AAA titles that took advantage of the raw power of the 360 and PS3 instead of focusing on titles that took advantage of the innovation of the Wii.

The motion controls did make a difference. That's why Wii is highest selling console this gen and why the others brought out their own motion hardware.

Nintendo didn't make motion controls to get 3rd parties. They made it to get the new audience.

Kinect was indeed a "me too" product because if it wasn't for the Wii Microsoft would have never developed and released it.

And I don't know where you got the idea that Move didn't sell well from because Move was a MASSIVE success for Sony, they couldn't even keep up with demand for the first 5 months after release and has sold over 8 million units so far, certainly behind Kinect which has sold over 10 million but still not bad for a product that "offered nothing new" (when in fact it was the first and STILL the only product in console gaming to offer true 1:1 motion capture).

Kinect was not as much of a 'me too' product as Move was. Move was too similar to Wii-mote while Kinect differentiated itself.

Kinect also moved hardware for MS, and a good number of software. Move didn't do much of that for PS3.