Nintendo's Next Console: What I Think (UPDATED)

In case those of you who have missed the news (or rumors, rather) about Nintendo's next console, there's a lot of speculation about what's been codenamed "Project Cafe." Many are saying it will be more powerful than the PS3, others are suggesting that if this is true, then Nintendo will be trying to win back the "hardcore" audience. After having guaranteed success with the Wii, many people might be drawn back to the company itself.

What I'm interested in are the controllers: what will Nintendo do this time around? Will it be motion controllers again or something beyond, something similar to Kinect? Or will they go back to regular old button mashers? From the mockups I've seen, particularly the one from IGN, it interests me. You can read the whole article here.

Able to stream games from the controller? That would make it its own handheld, and Nintendo has saturated the market with those. (On a different note: RIP Nintendo DS Lite.)

But I instead imagine something similar to this: 

Nintendo has never been about pressure sensitivity, so that could be put on the back burner for right now. As for control sticks, a screen that size (minus the black borders of the iPhone) would be able to display two of them along with 4 buttons. Nix the d-pad or have the ability to switch between the displayed right thumbstick to a d-pad in-game. Shoulder buttons can, of course, go on top of the controller.

Now about the system, if this thing is a powerhouse that some sites are claiming, I take it Nintendo isn't going to be doing backwards compatibility. They're also saying it'll either be the size of an SNES or an original Xbox.

I was highly impressed when Nintendo first announced the Wii years ago, I was planning on getting one eventually. But then the whole pile of slushware games came out, Nintendo was putting their approval on virtual toys and I realized that that's all the Wii has become: a toy. There are a few games worth playing on the console but the small amount of them makes it not worth buying. I'll keep my eyes, ears and mind open to Project Cafe in the meantime.

UPDATE: It's been confirmed by multiple sources that Nintendo will have a playable version of Project Cafe ready at this year's E3 in June. It seems that the Big Three console developers always have leaked information, which leads me to believe that its intentionally leaked for hype purposes.Speaking of hype, I was highly impressed with Nintendo when they revealed the Wii only to be let down by the millions of slushware titles that got approved by Nintendo, so I never bought one. I'm being cautious on this new console until more news is revealed, and possibly new IPs while they're at it.

Keep Playing.