Well, it's finally official. The next generation of consoles will kick off this year.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told reporters Thursday that the successor to the popular Wii system, the WiiU, will launch by the end of the year in the United States, Japan, Europe and Australia.

This announcement comes after Nintendo slightly lowered sales forecasts for the fiscal year ending March 31, knocking down 3DS sales projections from 16 million to 14 million, and Wii sales from 12 million to 10 million. The 3DS projection drop isn't a big deal, as total worldwide sales for Nintendo's new handheld is at 15.03 million units. Not bad considering the horrendous start it received.

However, Wii sales so far this fiscal year are at 8.96 million units, a drop from 13.72 million units the year prior. Even though it's sold a whopping 94.97 million units worldwide, its sales are dropping and the games just aren't coming out for it anymore.

Nintendo's expecting a major loss at the end of the year for the first time in forever, which critics will jump on the doom and gloom train again. They'll ignore the part where Nintendo has billions in the bank from the DS and Wii successes, and the 3DS is killing it in sales, beating out DS's first-year totals. The same DS that's sold 151 million units worldwide.

Back to consoles, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the WiiU will debut this year. The Wii debuted in 2006 and if you follow the typical lifecycle of a console, it's coming to an end. The Xbox 360 has taken its sales glory as of late, and with all the rumors flying around about the new Xbox, Nintendo would no doubt love to get a head start in the next console race.

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