We don’t know much about the Nintendo NX. Nintendo has called it a “dedicated game platform” that perhaps aims to surprise players. Today, we do know two of the games headed for it.
Recently, Nintendo told Kotaku that it was not going to discuss the NX until 2016.
[Photos: Famitsu]
Square Enix just announced Dragon Quest X and Dragon Quest XI for the Nintendo NX. Dragon Quest X appeared on the Wii U, the 3DS, and PC, while Dragon Quest XI is coming to the PS4 and 3DS.
Hopefully that will give you an idea of what to expect for NX.
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Comments
35 responses to “These Are The First Nintendo NX Games”
True to history, I’m expecting a console less powerful than the ps4 and xb0 with excellent first party support but limited to no third party support after the first year… But with some seriously stunning games.
I don’t know I’m expecting something different and surprising. I don’t know what it’ll be but I think it could be something that involves portability.
My money’s on a portable console that connects to your TV. Basically, an untethered WiiU that you can take on the bus. Obviously, it wouldn’t be as big as a WiiU controller, but I think it’d have a similar TV play/Handheld screen play set up that the WiiU currently has.
I was thinking along those lines too. One thing I was wondering (which has probably been answered) is are they rushing this out or was it always planned for announcement this early? If it’s rushed out it could be even more likely that it’s similar hardware to the wii u just with a different twist?
I think they were probably planning for a later release, but the disappointing sales figures of the WiiU might have forced their hand. If you look at Nintendo’s E3 showing, it mostly seems to be filler. No big new games, just spin-offs for Metroid and Zelda, etc. to keep us going.
I also thought it was odd that with Zelda at E3 2014, Nintendo went from proudly showing off a big chunk of the new game, to not even showing anything a year later. Surely, after another year in development, the game would be looking even better, right? I think they may actually be changing it from a WiiU title to an NX title to help launch the new console.
If they switch zelda to the NX they’ll lose a lot of wii u users though, people will be pissed because the console will have had barely any of the real nintendo franchises on it.
True, fans will be pissed. But Nintendo franchises have a history of missing entire console generations already; no Metroid on N64 or WiiU, no F-Zero since the GameCube, no Advance Wars on 3DS, etc. So I’m guessing they hope the fans will forgive them for it.
The difference is the those consoles mentioned had a bunch of other top tier first party games. Wii u has mario kart, smash brothers, super mario 3d world and that’s it? For a console that’s been out this long it’d feel like a slap in the face is suddenly we aren’t getting zelda now, especially for the fans who bought the console after seeing zelda (I have 2 friends who did this).
I think the NX should have a smoother first few years than the wii u though, the recent titles from nintendo (splatoon, wooly world, captain toad) show that while some are more fleshed out mobile type games they are at least willing to try something new and provide some well packaged games to fill the gap in release schedules.
I think Nintendo fans will be pissed but it won’t stop them getting an NX if it gets the next Zelda game (formerly Zelda WiiU) as an exclusive.
It’s got to be a nightmare being a Nintendo designer who’s committed to an “open world” Zelda that everyone expects to be a system-saving masterpiece, using old(ish) hardware and releasing at LEAST a year after everyone’s been running around the Witcher 3 thinking “DAMN! This open world is amazing!”.
They’d be better to hold the Zelda-card and play it to get people to buy their next machine.
It is horsesh*t that the WiiU hasn’t really received any console defining 1st part titles, but if it hasn’t happened yet then Zelda would be the only title that could possibly deliver that. I mean the Wii didn’t get many either but it did at least get the brilliant Galaxy titles and the very good Skyward Sword. The WiiU has maybe Splatoon? Everything else is either a remake, a readaptation (think Mario everything), a Wii port (Pikmin) or a AA spinoff.
Also where’s my new F-Zero game dammit!
Yeah, I’m thinking along the lines of a new 3DS bundled with some kind of dongle like a Chromecast / PlayStation TV to stream it to the TV when you’re at home.
Lol, while I was typing out my theory below, you guys jumped in and beat me to it 😛
Previous to the NX announcement, rumours were of the Nintendo “fusion”. I think they changed the name because it was too much of a giveaway. However, the NX could refer to Nintendo Cross-play. The main console will be a much more powerful version of the 3DS but with a docking bay connected via HDMI to your TV. There’ll be a wireless controller that you’ll use when couch gaming. When you want portability, you simply pick up the NX out of the docking station and walk away.
Here’s the rub, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Nintendo to make any mobile console as powerful as the PS4 or Xbone. I think it will probably be more powerful than the Wii U, but not as big a leap as the PS4 was over the PS3. They are thinking more about the PS TV in terms of bringing mobile gaming to TV rather than AAA console gaming to mobile.
Bringing mobile gaming to your TV solves the problem of 3rd party support because the 3DS still has a good deal of it. Telling publishers that making games for NX will mean not only the traditional 3DS user base but also an added audience of home console users will certainly reassure them. Whether it will convince the likes of EA, Ubisoft, Activision, 2K etc to jump on board remains to be seen, but I think that Japanese publishers will have no problem with it.
Anyway, that’s my theory 🙂
One question with that theory is how does it fit in to them saying they want to follow the apple sales model? I remember when the “new” 3ds came out there was all talk about their investors pushing them to follow the model of a new slightly updated handheld every 2 years?
I think backwards compatibility will solve that problem. If Nintendo releases a new NX every year or two but publishers can be confident that future iterations will be able to play the games they release for the current one, there shouldn’t be any problem.
Having a docking station and controller that doesn’t need to be upgraded would also fit in with that scheme, with only the handheld component needing to be replaced.
Good point, we could see just the unit itself needing replacement while the station is it’s own separate piece of hardware.
It’s a decent theory.
In their investor meetings a few years back they said the next platform needed to use a universal software architecture across everything, that neatly takes care of that.
I hope it is true and that it takes off in a massive way. That way Sony will give us a Vita 2 🙂
True to RECENT history…. only without the high quality 1st party games.
It’s only been the last two generations where Nintendo have had weak hardware and fewer AAA 1st party classics (I’m talking Mario 64, OTT, Metroid Prime, Wind Waker, Mario Galaxy level titles).
They need to take a few deep breathes and plan this one out instead of rushing it, if it hits shelves with a ported cross-gen WiiU game (I’m thinking Zelda) or a “New” (rebadged) Mario game and no 3rd party support, then this is going to be another disaster. Once the WiiU lost momentum (almost instantly) Nintendo mobilised all its resources into keeping it alive and we’ve received mostly AA spin-offs and “readaptations” of Wii and 3DS games since.
They need a decent, forward thinking plan for the machine and a AAA, NX exclusive classic at launch. If they get sh*t right at the start then they’ll hopefully get some level of 3rd party support that will buy them the time needed to make the world’s best games.
Gamecube and N64 as well. Wii was the one breakout.
Are you suggesting the GC and N64 were underpowered?
The 64 had very different hardware to the PS1, but it was no doubt powerful. Games like Mario 64, Goldeneye, OOT, Wave Race ect were best in class titles at the time.
The GC too, was more than capable of holding its own. If I remember it was more powerful than the PS2 but less powerful than the Xbox?
Games like Wind Waker and Metroid Prime were beautiful at the time, and it was certainly capable of running 3rd party cross platform titles without significant scaling being required.
It’s only been the two Wii generations that they’ve released hardware that was significantly behind the competition. The Wii was a beefed up GC and the WiiU isn’t much more powerful than the last gen consoles.
It was moreso the third party support which they both suffered direly from a lack of. N64 at the beginning had a lot but by midway in its life cycle had dropped off dramatically.
Let’s not forget also the terrible hardware decisions that have been made in the past: Cartridges for the n64 which had an impact on pricing and 1gb discs for the Gamecube, both of these impacted storage ability at the time heavily often resulting in either drastic compression (RE2) or entirely altered content in other games that were released.
I still feel like I’ve barely had my Wii U long enough to warrant buying yet another console D:
To be fair, the Wii U is 3 years old this year. They’re saying they won’t even talk about NX until next year, so it’s possible that won’t come out until 2017, which would be 5 years after Wii U, which is pretty much in line with the traditional cycle (leaving aside the prolonged previous generation, of course).
I’m guessing it’ll be 1st quarter 2017 at the absolute latest and probably November 2016.
From what we saw at E3 this year, Nintendo doesn’t seem to have enough coming for the WiiU for that to be a viable platform for another 2 years.
If it’s going to be any reasonable success then they really need to sell a lot more WiiU consoles and they must know they aren’t going to do that with Starfox.
If they’re smart Nintendo should have scrapped Zelda WiiU entirely by now and be focussing on Zelda as an NX launch game. Zelda is a system seller and they only get to play the ‘Zelda-card’ once every 5 years or so, why would you waste that on the WiiU? Not many people will rush out to buy a clearly dying/ dead console who’s replacement is waiting in the wings, not even for a Zelda game.
As a massive Nintendo fan who still hasn’t (and probably won’t) buy a WiiU, a Zelda game at launch would make the NX a guaranteed day 1 buy.
They probably have already scrapped Wii U Zelda, but they wouldn’t announce it just on the off chance that they can scoop up a few much-needed extra Wii U sales from people who are waiting for it 😛
I still reckon it’s going to be a new portable system as the 3DS will be pretty long in the tooth by then.
Keep in mind the New 3DS came out not long ago
I realise that but it’s still essentially the same hardware. Just another revision of the 3DS with an extra thumbstick.
By 2017 or so, I think the 3DS will definitely be past its use by date. The Wii U still has a lot of life in it I think and Nintendo’s commitment to not only games but also quality DLC for those games for the system confirms that.
The NX won’t be a console to replace the Wii U. It’ll be a portable system to replace the 3DS, or some kind of hybrid thing, but either way it’s not replacing the Wii U.
It did also update the internal hardware quite a bit.
I think it’ll be a tablet that connects to TVs as well.
I want a new Nintendo Glove! …. bear with me.
Imagine immaculate 1-1 motion control covering the entirety of both hands.
Why have a controller at all when hand gestures could be used for every action a game requires?
Think of ‘Minority Report’, the video game in the movie ‘Her’, the hopes we all had for the Move and the Kinect. Its what I wanted the Wii U to be. I know it will effect that third party investment we’re all clamouring for, but I want that Wow Factor Nintendo has been doing so well (besides the Wii U and maybe Gamecube) since their inception as a hardware/software developer. I don’t need or want another PS or XB from Nintendo, I want THE FUTUUUUUURRRRErErErE….
There was some gossip going around a few months back that it combines the Wii U and the 3DS into one console. Basically, a Wii U that you can carry around then transfer onto your tv when you got home. Maybe that was just speculation…trying to find it now.
Yeah I think a gaming tablet that connects to TV. This’ll get Nintendo fully into the mobile sector that they are exploring and didn’t they partner up with a mobile developer to set up their NNID?
I bet NX is a clunky appropriation of UX. I anticipate that they are creating a Google Play/App Store mobile arrangement. Maybe they are moving away from console hardware?
For a long time there’s been rumours of a 2-in-1 portable-that-connects-to-tv console, but those rumours seemed to stem from that one investor meeting where they said they wanted a more standardised software architecture. iOS was the example, meaning that you could use the same code base for a phone and tablet form factors. So we’re not talking 2-in-1 hardware, we’re talking about software that makes it easy to write one game which runs on both a TV-based console and a portable.
I’m not saying they won’t do a 2-in-1, just that the rumours are stemming from something which in fact does NOT hint at a 2-in-1.