Home » So, When Will Nintendo Announce Its Subsequent Console?

So, When Will Nintendo Announce Its Subsequent Console?

by Icecream
0 comment


Inspecting handheld launch dates paints a really completely different image from their residence console brethren. The Sport Boy launched in 1989 and it was seven years till the revised Sport Boy Pocket appeared in 1996. Whereas it was smaller and sported a greater display, let’s additionally keep in mind that the Pocket variant was functionally equivalent to the OG Sport Boy.

Two years later, the Sport Boy Shade’s full backward compatibility blurred the traces between {hardware} generations (though it did host GBC-only titles) and would proceed to be manufactured till 2003, two years after the launch of Sport Boy Advance and only one 12 months earlier than the arrival of the DS. SP and Micro revisions of the GBA meant that manufacturing of that specific GB line was halted solely in 2008.

Nintendo is more likely to channel its extra madcap concepts and creativity into contained, Labo-like software program experiments whereas the core console providing stays reassuringly protected and conservative.

And it goes on. Iterations of the DS — the best-selling Nintendo console of all time, bear in mind, with Lite, DSi, and DSi XL variants along with the unique ‘Phat’ model — had been nonetheless being manufactured following the launch of 3DS in 2011, which closes the circle on the handheld-only line and brings us again to the intertwining of residence and handheld branches with the hybrid Swap.

All of that is to say that, the place earlier Nintendo residence consoles have historically loved five-ish years earlier than a successor is launched, the hand held historical past is way extra erratic, with revised fashions clouding issues and an enormous quantity of overlap between programs. An ‘unopposed’ seven-year run is not unprecedented, and Swap’s handheld nature signifies that we must always certainly buckle up for a non-conventional handover to a brand new system, no matter it might be.

There’s additionally the query of whether or not Nintendo sticks to the identical Swap-style {hardware} formulation for the subsequent technology, although.

Kind(ula) and performance

Super NES Closeup
Picture: Zion Grassl / Nintendo Life

Assuming for a second, then, that the extra haphazard historical past of the hand held line hints on the template Nintendo will observe for Swap’s successor, it’s maybe — maybe — protected to imagine that Nintendo will keep on with a console that ‘switches’.

Metroid Prime Pinball DS Lite
There was virtually definitely no Nintendo DS earlier than this one — Picture: Damien McFerran / Nintendo Life

The hybrid idea, and the way it differentiates the corporate’s providing from the powerhouse PlayStations and Xboxes, has proved profitable and carried the corporate via attempting instances for the video games business and the broader shopper electronics sector. Nintendo could have diversified its IP choices throughout cellular and different media, with the upcoming Tremendous Mario Film being the obvious instance of development outdoors the sector of purely interactive media, nevertheless it has nonetheless thrown all its {hardware} eggs within the mixed hybrid console basket. The industrial failure of Wii U was mitigated over time by the robust efficiency of the 3DS line, however that backup does not exist anymore. Merely put, this implies Nintendo is more likely to channel its extra madcap concepts and creativity into contained, Labo-like software program experiments whereas the core console providing stays reassuringly protected and conservative.

Which is ok, if a bit of unexciting. A part of us actually desires Nintendo to do one thing zany, as a result of that’s what units it aside from different builders. With the ability to predict with cheap accuracy what Nintendo’s subsequent transfer will probably be? How extremely boring!

Nonetheless, ask most commentators and avid gamers — us included — what they need from Nintendo’s subsequent console, and so they’ll virtually definitely hope for an replace that sticks with the important Swap idea. It matches into our existence, various as they’re, and it is tough to think about future Nintendo video games being chained to a TV like a daily console.

Peak efficiency

Metroid Dread OLED
Picture: Damien McFerran / Nintendo Life

The thought of a easy ‘Swap 2’ is fairly boring and lacks ‘the Nintendo distinction’, then, nevertheless it makes an excessive amount of sense to deviate from, even for a corporation as creatively defiant as Nintendo.

However who can say? Maybe Swap 2’s Pleasure-Con will include vitality sensor holes to fit your fingers in and a holographic projector that can allow us to play Strategema in tabletop mode, like in that episode of Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology. Regardless of our love for Swap, we additionally love a great shot of that patented Nintendo ‘What The—’ once in a while, to assist maintain issues thrilling. We hope the subsequent console could have loads of that, too, even when the bottom expertise itself could also be unusually predictable.


When do you suppose Nintendo will announce its subsequent console? Tell us within the ballot under, and depart a remark if you would like to elaborate.



You may also like

Leave a Comment