Report: Nintendo’s NX console handheld and console in some way
Oh, Nintendo. Just keep fucking around with the peripherals and other gadgets. ‘Cause that’s going to reinvigorate your dwindling console market presence.
Nintendo’s new gaming platform will encompass a console and a handheld according to a report in today’s Wall Street Journal.
According to the paper:
The exact shape of the NX hardware isn’t yet clear. People familiar with the development plans said Nintendo would likely include both a console and at least one mobile unit that could either be used in conjunction with the console or taken on the road for separate use. They also said Nintendo would aim to put industry-leading chips in the NX devices, after criticism that the Wii U’s capabilities didn’t match those of competitors.
Nintendo has traditionally sold consoles and handhelds as separate devices that have little connection to each other. If the WSJ report is correct, that would be changing. How much it’d change is hard to say. It’s unclear if the NX platform would be offered to gamers and consumers as two separate devices, or if the “console” and “mobile unit” would be one bundled offering. But it does seem like the platform would further merge Nintendo’s long-separate console and handheld gaming strategies.
Update – 10:40am: The reporter who broke the story for the Journal said on Twitter that NX platform is “likely to have… more than two devices.” That further emphasizes the idea that the NX could be a family of machines that work together rather than a single unified device. We’ve updated this article’s original headline “Report: Nintendo’s Next Platform NX Is A Console-Handheld Hybrid” to be more clear that, while the platform of the NX seems to merge ideas of console and handheld, we don’t know if there will be any one device that does that all in one. I apologize for confusion on that point.