What’s NX-t for Nintendo?
2015 was a year to forget for Nintendo, a gaming company that once led the way, is now trailing behind as it looks to start afresh in 2016.
Coincidentally the future of the Japanese gaming giant may just lie in NX, the current name for their next console. After an uninspiring few years with the Wii U in which the company lost money for the first time, Nintendo is looking to cut its losses quickly by launching their newest console sooner rather than later. While not a complete failure, the Wii U is currently sitting at 10 million units sold compared to the 22 million sold by the GameCube and 100 million by the original Wii. A clear justification of Nintendo’s plans to move forward with the NX.
From all reports Nintendo is aiming to release the NX later this year with an official unveiling possibly prior to E3 or even as early as March. Details as you’d expect are few and far between on a console yet to be given an official name. In a recent interview however Nintendo president Tatsumi Kmishima did say, “As far as NX goes, I’ve said it’s different and obviously a new experience… I can assure you we’re not building the next version of Wii or Wii U. It’s something unique and different. It’s something where we have to move away from those platforms in order to make it something that will appeal to our consumer base.”
In this same interview in which the Nintendo president discussed the companies goals for 2016, the NX was strangely enough on the back-burner. In its place Kmishima stressed Nintendo’s focus on smartphone applications with their first foray in the market set to release in March via their social game Miitomo. Which is based around those friendly and often very freaky Wii avatars. Although these guyss have earned a degree of fame, Nintendo has told us to expect to see their most famous faces on apps in the future and Pokemon GO will be one such way we will see this happen. Pokemon is an augmented reality game for the smartphone set to release this year. The question remains however, do we want to and will we see Mario leaping around on our phones?
Also on Nintendo’s increasingly wide radar in 2016 are theme-parks and a possible anime branch out. It was back in May last year that Nintendo announced a partnership with Universal in which they would look to add their own rides to Universal theme parks. And it seems Nintendo haven’t forgotten with the company eager to see their characters excite on a very physical level in years to come. On a more emotional level, while already operating their own anime channel, Nintendo are looking to bring tears of joy to fanboys around the world by securing licensing of their characters for use in anime, TV and movies. I don’t know about you but a Metroid Netflix series, Kid Icarus anime and another so bad they’re good Mario & Luigi movie would no doubt elicit a tear or two of my own.
While 2016 remains a bit of a mystery for Nintendo, there are a few things we can most definitely expect and that is of course, video games. For the Wii U we will be seeing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD release in March with Star Fox Zero following a month later. In regards to the 3DS Fire Emblem Fates is out in February while Hyrule Warrriors Legends and Mario & Sonic at the Rio Olympics are both out in March. One other guarantee we do have in regards to Nintendo’s future are those money making Amiibos. Having sold over 20 million of them already, 2016 will see at least 11 new ones hit the market.
It would seem that after a year in which many forgot them, 2016 is set to be the year Nintendo re-emerges from the shadows and reminds us why they’re one of the biggest, most successful gaming companies of all time.
Posted in Blog, In the News
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