Wii U Due Next Spring/Summer

Nintendo's Wii U launched to a confused reception at E3 last week - the game industry at large appeared to welcome the new platform but, at the same time, stock market trading dropped Nintendo's share value to a five-year low.

Still, the console is officially due next year and, according to SEGA's Executive Vice-President of Marketing, Alan Pritchard, that 2012 release could be slated for sooner in the year rather than later.

In response to a question from Gamespot as to whether Sonic Generations would be released on the Wii U, Pritchard stated:

"The timing just doesn't work. Generations releases this November, and the Wii U is coming out next spring/summer. I think one of the things we don't have to do, or reduce where possible, is we don't want to port games. I think if there's going to be a Sonic game for the Wii U, it needs to be built from the ground up. It's more likely that it would be a separate stand-alone instalment or in conjunction with a multiplatform release in the future. But to bring out Generations on a platform six or eight months after we release PS3, 360, and 3DS probably won't be the best strategy."

While it's likely that Pritchard has merely dropped an estimated time of arrival that Nintendo has provided for retailers and publishers (and certainly would not have been intended for public consumption), the spring/summer window for console releases is one that Nintendo has favoured in recent years.

The final two iterations of the Nintendo DS (the DSi and DSi XL) were launched in the West during the spring of 2008 and 2010 respectively. Nintendo's new 3DS handheld, on the other hand, was launched across all territories between February and March of this year. In short then, it seems likely that the Nintendo Wii U will come to market within the next 12 months.

Source:
TVG