There are two events that could change the life of a gamer: getting a girlfriend, and a new video game console being released. Every three-to-four years a new console is thrown out to anxious gamers, and sets the standard for the gaming world. With the Wii U being announced at E3, gamers are starting to believe it’s almost time for another console war. However, while everyone speculates about who will be the next company to unveil their new gaming machine, we should examine which companies actually needs one.

Companies will spend millions on designing a new console, but improving the wrong aspects can make making those millions back harder. Gamers want more than just better graphics. There has to be a risk, or “gimmicks” involved to get them interested. Nintendo is the king of gimmicks. They have been known to take risk with their consoles that no other company would dare take. That’s why they’re one of the most successful gaming companies around. Besides risk, these companies need to be aware of changing technology, and what new standards may be common practice by the time they plan to release their console. By the time the first Playstation was about to be replaced, DVDs had taken over VHS as the common format for home movie viewing. Playstation 2 became the first console to act as a DVD player and a game console, a feature that many of the consoles afterwords implemented.

Do we need the Wii U? Nintendo has never been known for their graphics, but that hasn’t hurt them in their glory days since competitors’ graphics were only notches above their games. However, with the other consoles reaching into high definition territory, the Wii’s standard definition graphics are beginning to look outdated. This, along with the difficulty of developing games that solely rely on motion controls, has driven third party developers away from the Wii. When the game of the year can not be released on your console because the controls make it difficult for developers to adapt, you are alienating an entire audience.

Out of all of the current consoles, Nintendo was the one company that needed a new console desperately. With the new Wii U controller having the capacity for traditional controls, it will be easier for third-party developers to adapt their games for Nintendo’s console. This, as well as the new console’s high definition graphics capabilities, should help keep the machine above the current console market, along with making Nintendo fans happy, while returning hardcore gamers to the brand.

Microsoft has been doing a good job at keeping their fans happy, but it hardly has to do with the console itself. The constant “red ring of death” issue with their console screamed a pre-mature release. The consistency of add-ons is proving to be cumbersome to any hardcore Microsft fan. By now, the average X-box fan owns an HD DVD player collecting dust, an added-on fan that attempts to take care of the console’s overheating problems, and the Kinect, which, if E3 is any indication, will soon be mandatory for all of their games. On top of that, they loss the high definition war, which has resulted in recent rumors that Microsoft is planning a blu-ray add-on for the X-box 360.

While the financial success of the console still grows, a new console would still be a smart decision for Microsoft. The biggest upgrade that needs to happen is the leap to blu-ray. Any Microsoft fan that bought L.A. Noire, and juggled with it’s three disc, will agree. Blu-ray is the new definitive format for films, and Sony has proved it should be the same for games as well. The disk can hold more information than a standard HD DVD, and has better graphical capabilities. All of these X-box add-ons need to be apart of the system itself, in order to reduce it’s cumbersomeness, and if they plan to incorporate Kinect into every game then it should come with the console, the same way Nintendo’s Wii comes with it’s motion-sensitive components.

Another possibility for the new console is the addition of touchscreen features. A sneak peek at Windows 8 revealed a skin display that resembled the home page for X-box Live, and featured the ability to navigate via touchscreen. The Kinect proves that Microsoft can be a bandwagon hopper when it comes to new trends, and if the Wii U proves to be successful then it could try to implement the same type of technology into a new console. Either way, the X-box 360 has ran it’s course, and it’s time for a successor to emerge.

It’s ironic that the console with the most promise to last long is the one also doing the worst financially. It’s emergence as the victor of the high-definition war is enough to make a case that Sony does not need a new console at the moment, and the fact that Playstation 3 is still one of the best blu-ray players on the market has helped Sony recoup it’s losses from it’s initial release of the console. Gamers weren’t willing to shell out six-hundred dollars for a console, but Sony has now reached a reasonable price that doesn’t sacrifice too much hardware. This price cut has given a lot of gamers an incentive to try out the powerhouse machine.

The only thing that Sony could benefit from a new console is gaining a new image. The Playstation 3 had tarnished the elite status the Playstation 2 had established, and the idea of Playstation 3, even with its changes, could have still left a sour taste with gamers. A Playstation 4 could help reestablish their clout in the gaming world, and take back the throne that the X-box 360 and Wii have been holding during this console war.

The other major problem Sony needs to figure out is how to properly handle their existing game library. Backwards compatibility may be too expensive for the company to implement, but they are shutting off an entire audience by not having it. Re-releasing the games in an HD format my seem cheap for those who already have the game, and want to play it without wrestling wires to switch between the Playstation 2 and 3. Perhaps they could offer the opportunity for gamers to send their machines in, and pay for backwards compatibility to be installed. Even with these aspects considered, there is nothing that makes me think the Playstation needs to have another console in the immediate future.

No matter what technological upgrades a company tries to express as vital, you will always find me saying that a console is nothing without it’s games. Gamers buy consoles for their games. Nintendo’s consoles have been solely surviving on their first-party games for decades, and Sega’s consoles died because of their lack of unique games. Whatever the gaming corporations have in mind for the next generation of consoles, I hope they always keep their games as their first priority.