The Nintendo NX Will Not Be At E3, Says President Iwata
Nintendo has confirmed that the Nintendo NX will not be at E3 this year. The mysterious “NX” system was first disclosed to the public during the event announcing the partnership between mobile gaming heavyweight developer DeNA and Nintendo. The gaming press and investors were curious if the partnership of the two companies was the signal that Nintendo would abandon the dedicated video game console and hand held markets all together. During the press conference, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata spoke very briefly that Nintendo was not giving up on the dedicated hardware market and that development was already underway for the successor to the Wii U and 3DS called the “NX.”
“Nintendo has decided to deploy its video game business on smart devices, but it is not because we have lost our passion or vision for the business of dedicated video game systems”, Iwata stated at the press conference.
Last week, during an investors meeting for Nintendo, one investor asked if the “N” in NX was meant to stand for Nintendo. Iwata replied that details on the new hardware would not be made available until after 2016. “We do not plan on talking specifics about the NX until 2016,” Iwata said, according to Kotaku‘s translation of the investor’s meeting.
With E3 being held in mid-June, we are not expecting to hear much from Nintendo about the new NX hardware. Rumors will likely fly about the new hardware, such as the one the Inquisitr reported on that seemed to hold water back in 2014. However, rumors should always be considered rumors until Nintendo says otherwise.
Beyond the code name “NX,” which will not be at E3, we do not know much about the new hardware. Aside from the fact that the Nintendo NX will not be at E3 and it is under wraps until next year, the only clue we have is from a vague reply Iwata gave Nikkei. Translated by Kotaku, Iwata stated, “However, if you only expand upon existing hardware, it’s dull. In some shape or form, we’re always thinking about how we want to surprise players as well as our desire to change each person’s video gaming life.”
The only other clue about the new hardware comes in a restructuring of Nintendo’s internal hardware development teams. In 2013, Iwata combined the hardware divisions into one unit bringing the hand held and set top box teams together under one roof. Again, when speaking to investors on this point in 2014, we see what the over all idea behind this move is. “It will become important for us to accurately take advantage of what we have done with the Wii U architecture,” Iwata said. “It of course does not mean that we are going to use exactly the same architecture as Wii U, but we are going to create a system that can absorb the Wii U architecture adequately. When this happens, home consoles and handheld devices will no longer be completely different, and they will become like brothers in a family of systems.”
It’s easy to extrapolate that the Nintendo NX will be a portable gaming system, as well as something that can be used at home on the big screen TV. Much like Apple’s ecosystem built around their closed iOS, Apple owners can move content effortlessly between one device and the next. If Nintendo is going the route of a more unified platform, we might actually see more hardware options than a single dedicated TV unit and hand held unit. However, since this new Nintendo NX will not be at E3, we will have to wait and see when Nintendo releases more information on their next hardware iteration.
[Image Source | Kevork Djansezian – Getty Images News]
