Nintendo’s NX is to be unveiled this year, but NOT during Nintendo’s E3 showcase
With one of the largest video gaming conferences in the world just a few short weeks away, speculation is flying around the Internet over what is going to be revealed or demonstrated at the show.
Nintendo, one of ‘the big three’, has stipulated that, at Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3), it will be focusing on the forthcoming Legend of Zelda game – which is now being said to be releasing simultaneously on Wii U and the yet to be launched NX console.
Very little has been said or shown regarding Nintendo’s next big console, codenamed NX. However, Nintendo of America recently tweeted that the NX project has been given the worldwide release target of March 2017 – less than a year away.
This is a strange time to launch the console, as Nintendo won’t benefit from holiday sales. In an interview with Nikkei, Nintendo’s President Tatsumi Kimishima has explained that this was to make sure there were enough games for the console upon launch.
When probed about the console’s specifications, Kimishima also hinted towards its reveal, stating “I’d like to announce more particulars regarding its specs and how it works another time this year”.
With E3 now so close and NX supposedly launching ten months down the line, it seemed likely that Nintendo would be showing off a tech demo at E3 2016 to whet everyone’s appetites.
Sadly, Nintendo has instead decided to keep NX in the shadows – announcing a deliberate absence of the console and its games from the convention for a second year running.
E3 is the largest established platform for showcasing new technologies and innovation in video games – making it all the more bizarre that Nintendo doesn’t want to share its new gear here.
Nintendo has expressed disdain towards the traditional E3 conference in the past, having opted out of live keynote speeches and demonstrations to instead screen prerecorded videos announcing its games and products to the world.
The company follows the same formula with its Nintendo Direct broadcasts; however, there has yet to be any mention of NX making its debut through Nintendo Direct either.
NX dev kits have already been issued to several third party developers, which suggested that the console’s reveal would be on the horizon. Unfortunately, that’s now looking less and less likely.
The time for Nintendo to quash the rumors and give consumers the info they need on their new product is seemingly going to be further down the line than hoped.
What do we know so far?
The console has been somewhat of an enigma. Very little information has surfaced about it, while third-party developers have been tight-lipped about discussing their dev kits or showing images of it – probably due to Nintendo’s scrutiny.
The only official word on the console’s specifications comes from Kimishima, who has stated that “it’s not merely the successor to the handheld 3DS or stationary console Wii U. This will be hardware that’s been made with a new way of thinking”.
A patent filed by Nintendo includes a document with a preliminary design of the controller. The design is minimalist, being comprised mostly of an oval touchscreen with what appears to be two thumb-sticks at either end.
Some supposed leaked photos of the controller with this design started circulating around the web, but were quickly debunked as 3D-printed mock-ups. There are no official images of the controller or the console thus far.
The popular belief, from a report published by The Wall Street Journal, is that the console will, following on from the Wii U, be a hybrid of both a home console and a handheld.
The NX controller will act more like a smartphone in terms of portability – unlike the Wii U Controller, which you could really only carry to different rooms of your house.
With Nintendo’s recent venture into iOS and Android gaming with the mobile-apps Miitomo and Pokémon Go, the company appears to be moving more towards mobile gaming, which would make the mobile motif of the controller all the more likely.
The Wall Street Journal’s information comes from a private demonstration of the console that the news outlet was privy to. The same private demonstration led to several sources claiming that the NX tech demo needed industry-leading chips in order to run on a PC, and could rival the PlayStation 4 in terms of power and performance.
This would come as a surprising move from Nintendo, as the last couple of generations of its consoles have seen meagre specs in comparison to the rival consoles from Sony and Microsoft.
Incorporating high-end processors and state-of-the-art graphics cards has never been Nintendo’s focus. Last year, Representative Director and legendary game creator Shigeru Miyamoto spoke to NPR on the matter, stating: “rather than going after the high-end tech spec race and trying to create the most powerful console, really what we want to do is try to find a console that had the best balance of features with the best interface that anyone can use”.
Whether Nintendo’s attitude towards graphical capabilities has changed is yet to be seen. However, Nintendo will be revealing specs and more information sometime this year – just not at E3, and probably not soon either.
Written by Ed Quinn
