It's no big mystery why Nintendo is setting up the Wii's successor for next year; the Wii is just not as exciting as it was. It happens to every console, but in Nintendo's case, Iwata it to a lack of developers being able to "surprise customers" with the Wii as it was now.

We'll take "surprise customers" to mean "be innovative," which the Wii had not exactly proved too often during its life -- yes, games like and were great, but were still pretty traditional.

Though 2011's lineup of Wii software is questionable around the world (just look at Nintendo's ), Nintendo themselves intend to release at least one Wii game every month -- in Japan, anyway. This includes the recently-announced , Activision's , Wii Play: Motion, Just Dance 2 and Rhythm Heaven (which can only be played with buttons; no motion control of any kind here), plus , a new Kirby game, and hints at more unannounced games later in the year.