A brand new Neilsen survey indicates that interest in the successor to the Nintendo Wii is high.

A new Neilsen study has been conducted ahead of next week's E3 event to gauge interest in terms of console successors. While Nintendo has confirmed they will showcase the Wii's successor next week the study also asked gamers whether they would be interested in a successor to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The reports indicate that there is a lot of interest about the Nintendo conference out there at the moment. According to an analysis of the pre-show discussions 22% of over 131,000 tracked online messages were focused on the successor the the Nintendo Wii.

When participants were asked 27% said they would be interested in buying the Wii's successor within six months of release, even before knowing any firm details about it. In comparison 25% of the same participants said they would be interested in purchasing a successor to the Xbox 360 in the next two years, while 24% said they would purchase a successor to the PlayStation 3. When asked only 18% would purchase a successor the the Nintendo 3DS while 13% were interested in Sony's next handheld.

However, the survey did find that on average those who owned a Nintendo Wii and another console, either a Xbox 360 or PS3, were less interested than those who just owned a Wii. 46% of participants who owned a Wii and Xbox 360 were interested in buying the next Xbox console compared to 37% who would buy the Wii's successor. Comparatively 44% of participants who owned a Wii and PS3 were more interested in purchasing the next PlayStation, while 40% were more interested in the Wii successor.

47% of the participants expect the Wii successor to be out in the next two years, which Nintendo has already promised, while the percentages are 40% and 37% for Microsoft and Sony respectively.

It will be interesting to see if this survey was repeated after next week how the figures would change but it is not clear if there will be another survey.