Square Enix boss Yoichi Wada has been gazing into his crystal ball, the long-serving Japanese executive predicting that new systems for the and might not be as big as expected, while a new console could land in 2011.

"Present game machines already have a lot of functions: they are a network terminal, a or DVD player, and a gaming machine," Wada-san told the Financial Times.

"Compared to these three pillars, the controllers are quite limited, so the impact may be small. They are an extension of the gaming function."

That said, Wada does expect to become the user-interface of choice, while a new Wii console in 2011 might boast "functionality more like that of Microsoft's 360 or Sony's PlayStation 3, and possibly a different controller."

By Luke Guttridge