Nintendo eyeing 'more compact' Wii 2 motion control - Miyamoto

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata may have said in August that a successor to the best-selling Wii won't be coming "any time in the near future," but the console's follow-up is clearly strong on the industry's mind. Earlier this year, prominent Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter projected a Wii HD to debut sometime next year, while Square Enix head Yoichi Wada went on record last month to say a new console from Nintendo may come as early as 2011.

With those predictions in mind, Nintendo creative lead Shigeru Miyamoto has offered a small teaser on what gamers might be able to expect from a new console. Speaking to Popular Mechanics, the creator of the Wii, as well as such gaming icons as Mario, Donkey Kong, and Link, said that he thinks the next device will have motion control similar to the Wii's. He further noted that this control method would probably be more economical and formfitting than the currently available device.

"With both the Wii Remote itself and Wii MotionPlus, what we've been able to do is introduce an interface that is both, I think, appealing and at the right price for a broad audience," he said. "And while we don't have any concrete plans for what we'll be doing with hardware in the future, what I can say is that, my guess is that because we found this interface to be so interesting, I think it would be likely that we would try to make that same functionality perhaps more compact and perhaps even more cost-efficient."

Along with predicting Nintendo's new console last month, Wada said that he expects motion control in games to become standard. Indeed, Nintendo will soon be facing increased competition on the motion-control front, as Sony prepares to launch its EyeToy-compatible controller for the PlayStation 3 during spring 2010. Microsoft's camera-based motion-sensing device for the Xbox 360, codenamed Project Natal, is also expected next year.