Nintendo Hints About The Future

Nintendo has been in the news in a big way this week. Nintendo managed to win IGN’s Game of the Show at E3 this past week with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. They also gave fans a first look at the next installment of the insanely popular Pokemon franchise. However, the final day was just as important when the higher-ups decided to drop some juicy Nintendo hints about what is to come in the near future.

It is no secret that Nintendo’s home console the Wii U is in the final days of the system’s life. While Nintendo had promised support for the system as the NX launched, hints were dropped that this may not in fact be the case. The Financial Report caught up with Nintendo of America’s Vice President of Sales Scott Moffitt. Moffitt all but said the focus of Nintendo’s strategy has moved on from the Wii U, and the company is now solely focusing on the NX.

“There’s certainly plenty of content for existing Wii U owners, but there’s plenty of reasons for people who’ve never owned the console to grab one now while they last. We will be transitioning production to NX, so our message to fans is to grab a Wii U while you can, because they won’t be around forever.”

If this wasn’t enough of a hint, CEO of Nintendo Canada Pierre-Paul Trepanier dropped the bombshell to LaPresse that Nintendo’s sole focus this fall was to promote the NX and nothing but the NX.

“We’ll talk about the NX this Fall. At that time, it will be one hundred percent NX.”

All kinds of rumors have been kicked around at exactly what the Nintendo NX is. While some think it is a system that is on par with the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, others aren’t quite as convinced. In fact the head man of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aimé hinted that those with the latter thoughts may be closer.

When speaking with Bloomberg, Fils-Aimé was asked about the power of Nintendo’s next home console. He shied away from the specifics and focused more on what fans could expect from the NX.

“For us, it’s not about specs, it’s not about teraflops, it’s not about the horsepower of a particular system. For us, it’s about the content.

“We’re focused on bringing our best entertainment to both the Wii U as well as the NX in the future. So for us, whatever Microsoft and Sony are doing in terms of talking about new systems, that’s for them to fight out in that red ocean.”

This leaves a lot of fans wondering if they can expect the same go-to-market strategy for the NX that they saw for the Wii U. According to Moffitt, it seems Nintendo has learned its lesson from past mistakes. Moffitt insisted that Nintendo needed to do three things to ensure the success of the next gaming platform.

First and foremost, Moffitt echoed what Fils-Aimé had to say in regard to content. While this hasn’t been a problem for Nintendo in the past, fans should expect Nintendo to make great first-party games. With The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild releasing on the NX as well as the Wii U, it should give them a very strong game to lead with.

“We’re very excited it will be an immediate reason game fans will want to buy the hardware.”

Second, Moffitt stressed the importance of delivering a clear and concise message of what the Nintendo NX really is. If there is one thing that Nintendo has been criticized on extensively when it came time to launch the Wii U, it was the lack of focus on what the exact difference was between the Wii U and its predecessor, the Wii. Many fans simply thought the Wii U gamepad was an extension of the Wii.

Lastly, third-party support would be essential for Nintendo to build out a quality system. Nintendo is hinting that the ease of use to port games over from other systems will be the easiest a third-party company has ever seen. One anonymous developer who recently received a development kit said as much according to the NeoGAF rumor boards.

While Nintendo hints were abound at E3 this year, there has still been no hard evidence at what the NX actually is. Nintendo is certainly saying the right things, but only time will tell if they can truly live up to the expectations fans have been building since the NX was first announced last year.

[Image via Getty Images/Michael Kovac]