The new NX announcement from Nintendo was mentioned on the same day that it declared its declining revenue and profit.
Nintendo announced on Wednesday, April 27, that it will launch its new console codenamed NX, globally on March 2017. It mentioned that the new video game console will be a ‘brand new concept’. So far, Nintendo has been silent on what the NX device, the successor of Wii U, looks like or how it works.
Nintendo's method of announcing the news was slightly peculiar, seeing that it was buried in the page three of its quarterly financial report. The statement was sandwiched between news about a new video game called ‘Kirby: Planet Robobot’ and a news about growth in its ‘amiibo’ action figure business.
Nintendo’s hit product, the Wii console, revolutionised the video game industry with motion control. It sold more than 100 million Wii consoles since 2006. But, since the launch of Wii U in 2012, it sold fewer than 13 million units. A year later, the other two big firms in the video game industry, Microsoft and Sony have sold multiple times more than Nintendo. Microsoft has sold about 20 million Xbox One consoles, and Sony PS4 has sold about 36 milllion units.
“I can assure you we’re not building the next version of Wii or Wii U,” Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima said in 2015. In addition, he mentioned that it was the ‘next step of its dedicated device strategy’, which is the core focus of the company.
According to the report by the Wall Street Journal in October 2015, the device will include a console, an additional mobile unit, and feature ‘industry leading’ chips. It also claimed to already be distributing developer kits, the hardware that developers use to develop games.
Nintendo released a video game for mobile phones this year called ‘Miitomo’, which broke its long-held tradition of releasing games only for its own consoles. Nintendo will launch its new smartphone releases featuring the role-playing franchise ‘Fire Emblem’ and the community-simulation game ‘Animal Crossing’, between October-December this year. With its decrease in profits by 61% and drop in sales by 8%, Nintendo has been working hard to change its dominant strategy.
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