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Welp, that was fast. A report out of a trusted Japanese publication yesterday told of possible plans for Nintendo to use Android on their upcoming game console, the NX. Naturally Nintendo was asked if the report was true, and they didn’t outright refuse to comment.
In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal Nintendo suggests the rumor is not accurate in any way, and that they have no plans to use Android as the console’s software platform. So did someone give Nikkei some false information? Here are a few common scenarios:
- Translation errors often lead to misinformation. Perhaps Nintendo was speaking about Android in a separate context.
- A source could have deliberately tried to throw Nikkei off the path.
- The rumor is actually true, but Nintendo is lying through their teeth.
That last one is not all that far-fetched. Nintendo has denied rumors before, only for those rumors to turn out to be 100% true (see: the Nintendo 3DS XL). We’ve also seen this same pattern with a number of gaming companies, but that only typically happens when a company is trying to lower expectations so their official announcement has a bigger impact. We wouldn’t say revealing which software platform the Nintendo NX will use charts high on the list of things Nintendo wants to keep under wraps.
So all of that is to say that this rumor may or may not be true. Officially it’s not true, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to keep our eye on the Nintendo NX for the off chance that it is.
[via Wii U Daily]
k thnx
Nintendo – the next Blackberry. Haha I remember when Android wanted to get with Blackberry.
I was just talking about that earlier today when one of my older co-workers was talking mess about someone else not knowing their video game console history.
Nintendo has created the greatest video games in history. They are not the next Blackberry. They have one console with weak sales and everyone thinks it’s the end. They brought us Metroid, Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, and a litany of other iconic franchises and cultural phenomenon. Blackberry brought us reliable e-mail in our pockets.
Nintendo sees that there’s a problem, admits it, and plans to fix it. Blackberry did no such thing until it was too late.
Mmm… It may be true that Nintendo could tap into Android for whatever this NX thing is supposed to be. But it seems more believable that Nintendo would NOT use Android which would coincide with the level of control they like to have on their hardware and the system software that runs on it. (They’re kinda like Apple in that sense.) We’ll see next year.
If Nintendo were going to go Android, I’d think they’d start with a handheld, not a console. It seems a more likely fit. From a console standpoint, the native OS doesn’t really matter as much since games work best with direct hardware access. They got a bit complacent with the popularity of the Wii and its controllers that made them think being a step behind on processing and graphics power would continue to be OK. That’s somewhat understandable given that they probably have a greater need to keep the retail cost down. Their exclusive titles skew younger and they tend to be the preferred first console for people with young children.
With Wii U, that proved not to be the case. I don’t think the tablet controller was much of a selling point, because it actually took away a lot of the interactivity that made the Wii popular.
However, Nintendo will be fine for a while due to their exclusive titles and their kid friendly fare. Their big problem is the need to keep the MSRP lower than MS or Sony since they are more likely to be an introduction to console gaming.