What better way to kick off a new week than to crank up the rumor mill? PC and console gamers alike may take interest in the new supposed "inside scoop" related to Nintendo, as Japan's Impress Watch provides an interesting addition to the recent mutterings of a new console. According to the Japanese site, Intel and Nintendo are in talks about that very subject: the successor to the Wii.
The article's author, Hiroshige Goto, reports that Intel is trying to push Nintendo into using its Larrabee graphics processor. Despite various reports speculating that Nintendo will cough up an HD Wii this year or early next year (2011), Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime already stated that the company doesn't add to existing hardware (despite the Nintendo DS revision to the current DSi model).
With that said, any conversations with Intel would imply that Nintendo is working on a blueprint of the next console. As we've seen for the last few months, the next hardware upgrade has been a hot Nintendo topic triggered by declining Wii sales. All the additional HD talk may be pushing Nintendo into moving forward and join the ranks of Sony and Microsoft.
Goto's article points out that Intel's Larrabee might conflict with Nintendo's conservative approach to gaming. There's also the fact that Intel canceled the Larrabee as a standalone "discrete graphics product."
