Both Nintendo and Sony have weighed in on the prospect of starting the next generation of video game consoles — and neither company is in a rush to see it happen.

Cammie Dunaway, who heads up marketing at Nintendo of America, told Gamespot in an interview, “Even though our installed base it, at this point, 5 million households larger than the PS2 was at the same point in its lifecycle, [The Nintendo Wii] still has a lot of room to grow.”

Despite this affirmation, there are rumours that new hardware from Nintendo is expected to appear at E3 this spring, possibly in the form of a Nintendo DS follow-up.

Meanwhile, Sony says it’s in no rush to develop a PlayStation 4 anytime soon. Their reasoning: the PS3 has yet to meet its potential.

“I can’t even imagine what can be done technically beyond the PlayStation 3 in the near future,” said Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment’s American division. “A question I often get is when we are going to see PlayStation 4. When somebody can craft the technology that exceeds what were able to do on the PS3, but we are still just starting to harness it.”

Early in this generation, all three game console companies were quick to say that they expect this round to have a much longer life-cycle than recent generations, which only lasted about five years.

Analysts, the media, and random gamers have been speculating for years that Nintendo would, at some point, release a revision for its Nintendo Wii that features high-definition (HD) graphics. After all, Nintendo has the only console that does not support HD, while the Xbox 360 and PS3 do.

With a steady rise in the spread of HDTVs and the phasing out of “standard” definition, it would seem that Nintendo would likely be considering updating its console with HD support.

Reggie Fils-Aime of Nintendo of America has come out with a definitive answer — no. Nintendo is certainly not planning to give the Wii HD graphics.

Oh well.

Nintendo has made the Internet Channel on its Wii console free to all of its users.

The Internet Channel service was free as a beta version when the Wii console was first released.  Since then, the full version of the channel, which is powered by the Opera browser, became a paid service.

Those who have paid the 500 Wii points to purchase the channel will be rewarded with a free NES game on the Virtual Console in October.

Nintendo has confirmed reports this week that it will be releasing a new version of its DS handheld system this year.  The new system is called the DSi.

The Nintendo DSi will have two built-in cameras.  Nintendo also confirmed that music playback and a new slot for an SD memory card.  As a price, the DSi will not include the Game Boy Advance cartridge slot.  The DSi will feature larger (3¼-inch screens) and be 12% smaller than the Nintendo DS Lite.

The DSi will connect to an online store, like the Nintendo Wii does, to download software directly to the system.

The Nintendo DSi will be released in Japan this November.  No North American or European releases have been promised.