The internet is awash today with the news broke by the folks at Eurogamer about the rumoured configuration of Nintendo’s upcoming Nintendo NX.
I was previously of the impression that NX would be Nintendo’s replacement to the beleaguered Wii U. Whilst it had some quality games, it sadly did not perform as well as its predecessor. The NX on the other hand looks set to lean extremely heavily on the strengths that Nintendo has enjoyed in its handheld endeavours.
The NX is rumoured to be a handheld console with detachable controllers. When home, the main console can be ‘docked’ and the controllers removed to continue play on the sofa. Physical media for games will be in the form of cartridges; a trait shared with Nintendo’s handheld predecessors.
NX could be both a 3DS and a Wii U Sequel.
Eurogamer’s sources report that the cartridges will have a recommended size of 32GB. With Wii U optical discs topping at 25GB, that may suggest that graphical power is similar to that of the Wii U. In reality though, there may be some power efficiencies made to make the NX more aligned with the battery requirements of the handheld world.
This may seem like a bit of an odd move here, but in actual fact it gives Nintendo a fantastic opportunity to lean heavily on the successes seen with the 3DS. Take Japan for example, where handhelds generally do a lot better than in other territories. For a sample, the week-ending March 30th 2016 would have been a good week for the Wii U, after the launch of Pokken Tournament. Yet combined 3DS hardware sales that week across all form factors were over twenty thousand units compared to the Wii U’s nine thousand units.
Take what’s gone well with the 3DS and allow it to be used in a home environment too; that appears to be Nintendo’s logic and it might just be unique enough to catch appeal.
In my opinion, I think it could be quite an interesting idea. How that could translate to multiplayer games at home will be another question though. As soon as we find out more, we’ll keep you updated.
