14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata has announced that the company is building a brand new hardware platform, going by the development name of NX.
The corporation has just entered a business partnership with Japanese online giant DeNA, meant to bring new video games based on existing Nintendo franchises to mobile platforms.
There won't be any ports of existing Wii U or 3DS games, just brand new titles using popular characters and worlds, specifically crafted to take advantage of the power of smart devices, in order to ensure the top-notch experience that users have come to expect from Nintendo games.
The collaboration will apparently also extend to a brand new hardware platform, dubbed the NX. For the time being, neither company has revealed any details on it, simply announcing that we'll get to know more next year.
Furthermore, the new platform has been announced rather unceremoniously, being dropped right in the middle of a sentence by Nintendo's chief.
"Nintendo, together with DeNA, will jointly develop a new membership service, which encompasses the existing Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, the new hardware with a brand new concept NX, smart devices and PCs," Iwata is quoted by Eurogamer.
The NX is a mystery for now
The only thing we know about the NX is that it is going to be a dedicated game system, which sounds like the company's previous home or portable consoles.
Furthermore, Iwata has mentioned that the NX will be at the core of the newly announced membership service, resulting from the deal with DeNA, meant to be accessed from a wide range of devices, not just the Wii U and 3DS dedicated gaming platforms.
The company's move to the mobile gaming sector is understandable and a bit belated, considering that the Wii U is not even considered as taking part in this generation's console war, already lagging behind in spite of its year-long head start.
Furthermore, the advent and phenomenal growth of mobile gaming have encroached on Nintendo's dedicated hardware, severely limiting its potential to snag new customers.
This has all the hallmarks of an auspicious move for both companies, since Nintendo's creations are still highly popular and the company still has a very strong following, in spite of its reluctance to adapt to the modern trends of the gaming world.
If you want to learn more about Iwata's announcements, you can visit Nintendo's official website, where key slides from the presentation together with the boss' words have been uploaded.