A supposed leak full of sensitive Nintendo information published earlier this week on the message board NeoGAF looked a little more solid this morning thanks to some new corroboration. If it’s all true, we may be seeing Nintendo’s next console — along with both Wii U and NX versions of Zelda — later this year.
On Monday, a NeoGAF poster named Trevelyan9999 published a large list of Nintendo information that he claimed was from “an internal US marketing budget and scheduling overview for 2016”. Trevelyan, who also posts YouTube videos covering various Nintendo rumours, said the company’s mysterious new hardware, code-named NX, will be out this holiday season. He also listed 2016 marketing budgets for Wii U ($US34.5 million), 3DS ($US56.25 million), and the new Zelda ($US10 million), which Trevelyan said will still come to Wii U as promised and will also show up on the new machine.
Purported Nintendo leaks are a dime a dozen, of course — every year someone comes up with a big fake list of games they claim are coming to Nintendo platforms. But this one has proven to be at least partially true.
In the post, Trevelyan offered a list of the first-party 3DS games scheduled for the rest of this year. Other than the games we know about, the list mostly features codenames like “Caviar F” and “Torte City”, as well as a nugget that’s proven pretty interesting as of this morning: “Pokémon 20th Anniversary game ‘Niji.’”
It’s no big shocker that Nintendo is releasing new Pokémon games this spring, as the company announced this morning. What’s way more interesting is that “Niji” codename, which hadn’t been announced or publicised anywhere before Trevelyan9999’s post. As it turns out, the new Pokémon games are called “Sun” and “Moon”. But a look at the Pokémon website this morning revealed a curious file name:
Materials sent to press announcing the new Pokémon games also used “Niji” in their file-names for the Sun and Moon logos. It’s common for video game logos and press material to use a game’s codename. Sometimes, the developers who create those assets don’t actually know what the final titles will be. Curiously, Nintendo has since changed the logo’s file-name on its website from “niji-11-en” to “sun-moon-11-en.”
Also curious: Last night, Trevelyan9999 removed videos from his YouTube channel and pulled articles from his website that referred to this leak. It’s unclear whether he did this of his own volition or because Nintendo’s lawyers got involved. When I reached out, he declined to comment. We’ve also reached out to Nintendo for comment.
So what does all of this mean? Nothing is certain — and we have not been able to confirm any of this with our own sources — but the fact that Trevelyan9999 nailed the Niji codename adds some fascinating credence to a leak that might be real. It’s possible that only portions of the leak are true and that others are incorrect or outdated, as was the case with the giant Xbox leak that hit NeoGAF in early 2014. That leak correctly revealed information about unannounced games like Scalebound and Crackdown 3 but was incorrect on other, minor information, like the exact details of the Halo collection.
It’s still not clear exactly what the NX will be. Pundits have theorised, based on Nintendo’s hints, that the mysterious piece of hardware may be a hybrid portable and console.
Whether or not this leak is real, this should be a fun year for Nintendo fans. Nintendo has said they will unveil the NX by E3, which is in June.
Comments
13 responses to “Possible Leak That Nailed Pokémon Codename Also Lists NX For 2016 Release”
Surely this is not another, more powerful than WiiU type console…. That would be disastrous…
Nintendo said they are moving away from the Wii consoles and this is not a succors but a new designed from the ground up console. I expect there would be no backward compatibility then.
That will be disappointing if true. The more rumours we hear about the NX the more it concerns me Nintendo is not learning from past mistakes.
What mistakes are those, exactly?
Gimmicks in particular. It’s all well and good to have hardware which doesn’t keep up with the other consoles if your first party titles are solid, but the gimmicks get old fast. I can’t remember the last time I bothered to turn on the 3D on my 3DS, or became excited at the thought of a new game feature offered by the WiiU-mote.
They need to get back to basics and attract some decent third party support back to the platform.
You may call it a gimmick, but on the new 3DS i use 3D all the time thanks to the hardware improvements.
As for the wii u controller, are you mad? I wish the xbone had this so i could stream games to it or eqsily access menus in games. Some games just have way too many buttons and menus these days that a touch screen totally makes sense to navigate.
I didn’t say the WiiU-mote was bad, it’s just not ground breaking and it didn’t live up to the hype. There are very few games out there that actually use the second screen for anything but a menu/inventory interface.
yeah even first party Nintendo games don’t make much use of it. The 2 screens is awesome for a handheld but mostly impracticable for a console connected to your tv. Nintendo just need to make a legit console with legit games
But Nintendo’s player base love the gimmicks! It was the Wii’s gimmick what made it the winner of its generation’s console wars. The problem with the current generation gimmicks are not the gimmicks per se but the fact that they neglected to exploit them in a more easily recognisable way.
As for third party support, for better or worse, Nintendo hasn’t really needed it since the days of the SNES. It’s definitely not what makes or fails a Nintendo console.
Man, feels way too soon to be saying goodbye to the Wii U 🙁
My god. Stop it. The NX will NOT be released this year. We will be lucky to see it before the end of 2017 and even that I doubt. We know NOTHING about it other than the codename – we’ve been told more details will be released at E3 2016 and that’s all. When has a new game console ever been released within 6 months of its unveiling – let alone just “more details” being provided? These rumors are just going to upset the people that believe them. Zelda U will be out before the end of 2016 and no it won’t be released on the NX as a launch title either (ie TP on GC and Wii). Reason being is that what we have seen of Zelda U so far has been heavily gamepad based so doubtful it will be on the NX also. Anyway time will tell but please, these rumours are crazy out of control and until nintendo say anything themselves i will refuse to believe t.
Can’t think of one being released within 6 months, but the PS4 was released the year it was announced, only 9 months after it was announced. So if a console manufacturer did decide to release one within 6 months, they probably could. Also, last time Nintendo announced the Wii U over a year before release and that didn’t pan out (with the terrible marketing a factor as well).
HI team
A comment I made in here was blocked, I accept that but the comment notifier has said for days now I’ve got a notification in this thread, I can’t make it go away!
Cheers.