Nintendo Plus HD?!?

I admit, I had quite the shock when I was perusing the New York Daily News this morning when I stumbled upon a tiny little article with the headline "Wii to be HD."

The next generation of Wii is slated to make its appearance at the end of 2010, according to industry insiders. Nintendo's "Wii Plus" HD will feature enhanced graphics on par with PS3 and Xbox 360, and would facilitate the use of games between all three consoles. The upgrade is expected to spell big trouble for Nintendo's main gaming competitor Sony. The new "Wii Plus" format is expected to gain support from game publishers because it would cost them less to port an Xbox 360 game to the new Wii format than to build a new Wii game. "We believe that these factors will shift in Nintendo's favor eventually," said analyst, Michael Patcher.

I know, right? That's the whole article right there. And it totally makes it sound like the Wii Plus HD is already in development. But having read nothing about this groundbreaking news anywhere else, I was suspicious. It wasn't until I reached MIchael Patcher's name that I realized that this was just misreporting of pure speculation on his part. That's what the guy does. Blogs all over the interwebs are debating his musings, but the way the Daily News article is written gives a slightly different impression.

Personally, I'm glad there's no HD Wii Plus on the way. And Nintendo would be foolish to do it. The Wii is still champ, and while I have no doubt that somewhere, deep in the recesses of Nintendo's stronghold, they are already hard at work on its successor, there's no way anything is going to come out before the Wii starts declining in sales dramatically. Also, the very idea of porting games from the 360 easily to the Wii is kind of ridiculous because even if you had equally powerful processors for the graphics, the consoles still have vastly different control schemes. But who knows? I mean, we never thought Nintendo would suddenly come out of nowhere with a little add-on so they could finally have the 1:1 motion control that the Wii should have come with in the first place. They can be crazy that way!