Wall Street Journal Reports That Nintendo Has Started Sending out NX Development Kits

Just when Austin thought it was safe to buy a Wii U... :D

Industry leading chips and mobile component? Is it going to cost $500?

Right!

A weapon to surpass Wii U?!

Cool!

Jeff speculated awhile back that the NX being a hybrid like this. Given that this generation will most likely be a 7-8 year cycle if the NX did come out holiday 2016 with hardware parallel to the PS4/XB1 then it won't be considered too late.

I don't think Nintendo can afford to wait out the 5 years with the Wii U as publishers are ignoring them and their first party lineup won't be enough to drive more sales for 2 more years.

I am no video game system architect, but I always imagined a handheld that could be mounted into a console. Something that would be able to play the exact same games on the go and in the home. To me the project name also backs up this philosophy, since the X could represent a cross.

I assume it has more meaning than them saying "This is the next platform. It's codename is NX. Like "Next". You see, "Next" has the letters "N" and "X". Do you guys get it? Yes, what a good idea."

I think Nintendo making basically one console is the exactly right move. I would actually get one if I could play the combined console and mobile libraries they make. My issue is always that I'm not willing to buy either one as a result in how its split. Not until much later, at least.

I don't even use any Nintendo system on the go anyways. I just happen to like games that end up on those platforms (I want to play Fire Emblem Awakening) so it would be nice to have it at home if I wanted to.

The only problem I can see with that is that then you're limited to the power you can pack into a handheld, especially if Nintendo wants to try to make this more competitive with the PS4 and Xbox One this time around.

Industry leading only means surpassing PS4 and Xbox One which in a year or two should when the NX is released should be easy to do (financially and logistically), it will probably be priced in the $350-$400 range.

Guess i should hold off on buying that Wii U

a mistake would be to merely match the capabilities of the ps4 and xb1. though knowing nintendo's history that's a mistake that's likely to happen. im also sure the portability has something to do with wanting to be backwards compatible with the wii u.

I wonder if we'll see nintendo phones with tight controls.

@freakin9: I think matching the hardware is all that's needed if they are just trying to compete this gen. They just need the power so third parties can port their games easily to Nintendo's stuff. Nintendo doesn't need the power for their first party stuff; they always do well with what they have.

Industry leading hardware--because that worked out so well for the Gamecube. Nintendo should maintain their lower power, lower cost mentality.

@cooljammer00: I have been looking to pick one up for mario maker, I still think I will, but now it will most definitely be used off craigslist or ebay

Industry leading and detachable mobile components sounds like a recipe for launching at far too high a price point and not gaining any market share.

My impression was that these were software kits, not final hardware or specs. So couldn't this all change?

I figure it would be a home / mobile bundle that let's you take your games with you. On paper this sounds like a great idea, zelda at home before work then head to work and play zelda on the bus, but in reality it would be games like fruit ninja and maybe some GBA or other handheld games from previous generations. There could be games designed for it with cross play features where the mobile portion is used to collect an item or gain experience to take back with you into the game.

I'm interested to see what the NX turns out to be but unless there's a metroid game that has a 2d mobile portion and a 3d console portion, I'm not going to be buying it day one.

I would totally be interested in the NX if the mobile unit was essentially a 3DS that had crossplay

Two gameboys and a gamecube duct taped together

Video games!

Well a better console hardware wise would set the foundations of getting third party games on a Nintendo console again. Like Austin thinks I just don't see how they could put the NX out next year. Even if it does come out next year the launch titles will be even scarcer than the Wii U launch.

I hope the NX doesn't just match the Xbox One and PS4 in terms of power. If they do that, they will behind again, those systems are already lacking in terms of power as it is and they are years old already.

I'm kinda hyped!

Just tell me in simple terms how powerful this thing will be. How many Gamecubes?

What's the bet Zelda is never coming out on Wii U?

//What's the bet it never was?

Go Big or Go Home!

Given Nintendo's track record for the Wii and Wii U, I wouldn't be surprised if the NX doesn't even match the capabilities of the Xbox One or PS4, even if this new console doesn't come out for a couple of years. Nothing Nintendo has done recently leads me to believe that they would ever introduce some graphical powerhouse of a system that blows away the competition from Microsoft and Sony.

Really though, I don't care about any of that. I just want Nintendo to get their shit together and finally introduce some kind of unified, cross-platform account system that keeps track of all of my digital purchases. They need to stop this ridiculous practice of tying e-Shop purchases to consoles.

@strathy: That would piss off a lot of people. It will most likely come out on both with a better looking version coming out on the NX. It will basically be a repeat of what they did with Twilight Princess.

@strathy I've been contemplating buying a WiiU since Splatoon, but I haven't done it precisely because I'm worried about continuing support. People kept telling me "But the new Zelda!!!" I've been skeptical though, and this just pushes me further into thinking that NX will be the lead platform for the new Zelda.

It might come out for WiiU as well, but if they really are trying to push the open world aspect, then that's even more reason to suspect they're waiting for the more powerful hardware.

My Body is not Reggie yet

I guess I'll wait and not buy a Wii U now. It'll be interesting to see how Nintendo decides to release their first party games still in development.

I wonder if it'll use SD cards like was rumored.
It'd make some amount of sense, if the system is planned to be mobile as well as a home console.
Not like it matters that much, but it'd be kind of a cool novelty if we got something resembling cartridges for a home console after all this time. :P

Anyway, I've always preferred Nintendo's design aesthetics for their consoles' interfaces over Sony or Microsoft, even if the feature set for Nintendo's platforms haven't been up to par recently. They've always positioned them as game consoles first-and-foremost instead of all-around media devices.

If Nintendo can get a more powerful console and in-turn get that sweet, sweet third-party dev support... this could be Awesome! :D

The good thing is that dev kits are there now the real question how many new games people will make for the lanch (not ports of older games).

Hope they make the thing backwards compatible and also let people use gamepads from the wii U on the NX. Also Zelda is Nx /Wii U game for sure now

I think this is either a) wrong b) Nintendo want to screw up if it is true.

So lets see sometimes late next year next year, Sony would have sold maybe 45 million units and SOny will have sold 25 to 30 million. So who are developers going to make games primarily for and geared toward... on what systems?

Is Nintendo going to make a Nintendo NX box that is merely as good as PS4? Why would they do that when Sony and MS are three years ahead in sales? Do they try to make a new generation start against a backdrop of combined PS4/XOne sales of about 70 million, and with an industry that just want to keep making games for those established systems? Come on?! Does anyone see any logic in a plan like that?

What I could believe is Nintendo woudl send out "working prototypes" that developers could play with for the next three year while they plan some games. I can certainly see logic is showing 3rd parties some ideas and asking "What woudl you do if it was like this? What woudl you do if the system did this?"

Nintendo's only good bet, is lower the price of Wii U. They need to take some losses while they keep the Nintendo brand simmering. Meanwhile, they should be planning a new system for 2018 or 2019, and sure preparing publishers they trust with concepts that might take time to use well. Yet, Nintendo needs to be improving third party relationships quickly, and they need to be PROVING they will play with other publishers nicely next time. Right now, I think most publishers are chilly on Nintendo and I bet most executive board rooms are wondering in what shape Nintendo will be when NX is ready.

In the end I say, "too soon" and if they are going to do what that articles said...god help them.

Hopefully this new idea works out for them.

Nintendo definitely makes the best software.

Ooo, I don't know if I'm ready for the NX in 2016. Well, maybe I will.

With the GCN vs. XBX vs. PS2 generation, it's hard to use that history to judge the future from when the PlayStation 2 absolutely ran away with the race from the start. As much as the Gamecube is often regarded as a failure, I wonder why the first Xbox isn't said in the same breath since the worldwide lifetime sales of those two consoles were in the same 22-26 million unit bracket.

Still, I get the sentiment of Nintendo losing out by achieving performance parity. The NX has difficult questions to answer when it presents itself.

"Why should I buy an NX over the already-established and populated PS4 with PSN and XB1 with Xbox Live?"

"If the portable NX component is sold separately and at a cheaper price, why should I buy the home console NX when the games are just as good on the portable NX?" (Wii U's greatest enemy it fell to? The 3DS. Why get Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, or Super Smash Bros for Wii U when Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land, and Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS are just as good to a mass audience.)

These and many more questions are what the NX has to answer. I worry that Nintendo doesn't have the answers that will excite people to purchase any component of the NX.

It makes sense from the software side of things too: The idea of Nintendo getting to focus their attention to just one console is really exciting.

Just keep in mind that "industry leading" has always meant something a bit different to Nintendo than it has to other hardware manufacturers. Maybe it'll be cutting edge and I'll have to eat my words, I just don't want to see yall getting your panties in a bunch when this turns out not to be what you expected.

NEW HARDWAAAAARE

Man I really hope this is a console people actually want to develop games for. I love nintendos games but I'm not spending hundreds of dollars for a box whose only function is playing those games. If Nintendo made a box with a similar architecture to the other consoles, but it also played their games, man oh man, what a machine that would be. I'm cautiously optimistic about this based on what they're saying.

The concept sounds interesting. I do see some hurdles that will interesting to see how Nintendo handles them. First is the idea that you will have a console and a handheld and it will be able to play the same game, with the same fidelity. Do you have a game disk that copies to the handheld for playing on the go? Or is the whole thing cartridge based, but having less fidelity? What does the controller for this look like? Are you getting a gamepad-like device that is also the mobile unit? What happens if your like me and you have brothers and sisters who play games too, but you took the controller and now they may not even be able to play. There are other situations that I'm sure a much smarter person is hard at work on solving for this thing. The only thing I can say for sure is that whatever it ends up being, it will be one of the biggest back drops to the coming months. If this thing comes out and is Wii levels of popular than this whole video game game done got changed.

Is it weird I feel nostalgic for the old warioworld.com development site? In regards to the NX it would be cool if it was just one unit that plugs into a base. The biggest problem with them trying to create a portable unit that exceeds the power of PS4 or Xbox One is mostly battery and cooling issues but Nvidia has very recently been playing with placing the full power GTX 980 cards into laptops.

You could do something where the base houses more powerful hardware so that when you plug into the base you can run higher resolution, better framerates and more detail. You would have to build every game to support two quality levels which is doable as long as the standalone portable on its own isn't so underpowered that it compromises the design too much.

If you want to read in to the quotes from the article, Nintendo themselves are not saying they will have "industry-leading chips." We don't know who these "people familiar with the development plans" are. Granted, there's a chance it might be Nintendo employees. I would more likely assume the sources are from NX chip-providers (i.e. AMD).

Also, we can throw ourselves in a loop over the question of which industry are the chips leading. Is it an AMD APU ala PS4 and XB1? Is it an ARM-based chip ala mobile? Nintendo has used both types in the past for its hardware. Maybe it's both? But that would be expensive!

While I'm not too happy to see the Wii U have a 4 year run, there maybe more dire consequences with trying to coast on it for longer than 2016-2017. The Wii U's commercial fate has been sealed for a long time (I'd say 2014). While many clamor for a price cut that will improve sales, I can't see such a thing adding any more than 2-4 million more units for a platform that has and will a lack of games to buy. Nothing it going to save the Wii U from selling less than 20 million units and being Nintendo's worse selling console platform (after the Virtual Boy).

You say it is "too soon" for Nintendo to move on from the Wii U to NX. I say "it's about damn time" for Nintendo to move on from the 3DS to NX. Other than amiibo, the 3DS has been Nintendo's sales hero and now that hero is heading for retirement. The 3DS hardware was a bit creaky when it was released in 2011. Now in 2015, it is stretching what can be tolerated. Also, chips are cheaper now so that portable games can reach higher fidelity.

When you look at the NX as replacing the Wii U, it looks sad and rushed. When you look at the NX as succeeding the 3DS, the timing is right. And it is better for Nintendo (not sure if it will be for the audience) for NX to replace the ailing Wii U and the aging 3DS in the same moment in 2016-2017.

Maybe Nintendo could coast on the 3DS and Wii U for a few more years, but I think it is better for them (and potentially for us) to soon move away from their old platforms and close that distance of "Nintendo is 5-8 years behind everyone else."

@laxbro19:@cybexx:

Sadly, I expect NX games more along the lines of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U than the cross-buy and cross-play you see with some games on Sony platforms. I think we will see Nintendo using same or similar assets between games for the NX home console and NX portable console and pocket the development savings for themselves.

I don't think the NX is going to change a thing. Mashing a console and handheld together for cheap with power is a tough technical problem, and 3rd Party publishers are having enough trouble producing games for PS4 and XBOne - why would they add a 3rd platform to the mix? If Nintendo follows a conventional strategy, I think they won't have any more success, at least in the North American market.

The only way I see this being a runaway success is if they pivot hard the other way - they admit "core console gamers" (whatever you want to label the group that think top-end consoles are the only way to game) will never buy a Nintendo product except as the optional 'second' or 'third' console, and they start focusing more on the mobile audience instead. They focus on the general public, the group that spends their time playing endless rounds of Temple Run and Jetpack Joyride and Fruit Ninja, years after release - the people that turned Angry Birds into a crazy success.

Basically, they need to follow the same strategy that they followed accidentally with the Wii. But, that's a crazy brave move, especially when everybody's watching -- it takes guts and courage to face failure doing the risky thing, knowing the Internet is going to turn on you if things go against you. I don't know if Nintendo has the chutzpah to go for it like that.

This will either be the return of Nintendo or the end of it. At least to the console market.

Omg they're doomed. Nintendo has finally put the last nail in their own coffin. Doubling down on what made Wii U unsuccessful is one of the worst things they could have done.