The company is aiming to evolve past current hardware

Mar 24, 2015 22:24 GMT  ·  By

Nintendo has confirmed that it is planning to create an entirely new piece of hardware called the NX, but the company has not offered any sort of details about the actual device so far, with Satoru Iwata, the president of the company, suggesting that secrecy is required because of the changes that are planned when compared to currently available devices.

Kotaku quotes the executive as saying in a statement to the Japanese newspaper Nikkei that "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."

It's unclear whether Iwata is affirming that the NX will be different from everything Nintendo has created so far or if they are aiming to change how the entire video game world understands the concept of hardware.

We do know that the new platform will be dedicated to gamers and that it is not connected to the other big initiative from the company, which is focused around bringing new content to mobile devices via a new partnership with DeNA.

A full reveal for the NX will take place in 2016 and it's likely that until then Iwata and other executives will tease new features without addressing them directly.

Nintendo still has solid plans for the Wii U

The company has previously talked about the fact that it is working on new hardware that will be focused on the health of a player and about an entirely new mobile platform.

But at the moment, it is still dedicating a lot of resources to the Wii U home console, which had a disastrous start but has since managed to generate some solid sales when paired up with good titles like Mario Kart 8 or Super Smash Bros.

Currently, the big hope for 2015 is that the platform will see another boost when Nintendo introduces the new open world The Legend of Zelda title.

The company is also continuing to develop games and deliver firmware updates for the 3DS, which still is a money maker despite the fact that its market share has been eroded by the rise of smartphones.