Fancy devving for a Nintendo console? Well now you can. Perhaps. Maybe. Well...

[Ian Price]

Rumours are rife that Nintendo's next console (codenamed NX), will be Android based in a deliberate attempt to encourage developers to create for the machine.

Obviously I'd take this with a big bucket of salt and a "Yeah, right!" kind of attitude, but you never know, especially since Nintendo is now focusing more on mobile tech and releasing key characters and IPs (via DeNA) onto iOS and Android devices starting later this year/early next. Nintendo desperately need 3rd party supporters and have encouraged more indies recently, especially since Unity now supports WiiU and 3DS.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2015/06/01/report-nintendos-codename-nx-platform-will-be-android-based

If true, then GLB could be in a great position to offer development opportunities for Nintendo

Just remember that none of this is confirmed. But my fingers are crossed

[spacefractal]

Another micro console, but could been something like Nvidia Shield, a service, or just a Oua/Mojo? If the rumor is correctly, a port to NX should been pretty easy.

Nokia did something similar as well. So why not Nintendo?

The only differrent here would been eventuelly the controller, SDK required and eventuelly they also can require compiling for 64bit binaries or a different CPU. Those would do require updates to NDK and SDK. Im will eventuelly take a look on that.

[Ian Price]

I doubt we'll see the NX at retail for at least 6-12months, but they may well show it off at E3 in a couple of weeks.

Interesting times

[spacefractal]

its they show it on E3 as well. Im heard they wont shown it this time, so its quite in the future.

Also Wii U did also have a quite bad 3th party support and retired from the console quite quickly.

[Ian Price]

Yeah, Nintendo really need 3rd party devs right now. The WiiU has definitely suffered (at least partly) due to a lack of devs. Nintendo haven't given the WiiU it deserves either mind.

TBF there are more indies devving for 3DS and WiiU than there were, but there's still a massive lack of big company support.

[spacefractal]

The cpu choosen can property the reason and the constactly changing SDK?

They did just move on to PS4 and xBox one instead. Wii U cant even compete very well to the original xbox/ps4.

Me thinks, Wii U did came a tad too early, quite bad timed.

[Ian Price]

The WiiU would have done even worse coming later - the Wii was practically dead when WiiU released. Nintendo needed a newer machine and that's what we got. Unfortunately while we got a nice machine, we never got any software for it - a problem that still exists now. There are some supberb games for WiiU, just not enough.

The WiiU is definitely underpowered, but it does compare favourably to the PS3 and XBox360 in good hands. TBF the first XBone and PS4 software weren't much better than WiiU versions in some cases - look at the graphics of the first Assassin's Creed on PS4, XBone and WiiU - there really isn't much in it.

And it ran very smoothly, because UbiSoft knew the WiiU inside out.

[spacefractal]

Wii U version is still the weakest version. Framerate was quite low (20-25fps), while 360/PS3 ran faster. On PS4 example its ran 100% stabile 30fps without any stutter at all. That count a lots. But in that serie im have played most of those games on PC version anyway (completed 1-3, not black flag yet).

Wii U is on the other hand many excellent first party titles! So not a console im will oversigt, even today. Its a great supplement to the other ones. Its just sad third party games is nearly dropped. But Nintendo do can very well on the own to get that console anyway.

Im also looking to the new console, would been nice its Android based or a lots as a service. If a service, then its might require recompiling.

[Ian Price]

Yes, performance is more important than anything else and the WiiU does suffer, but you have to remember that the PS3 and XBox360 were also released years before WiiU (XBox360 2005, PS3 2006, WiiU 2012). Devs had a much better knowledge of the other machines, their capabilities and problem areas. Black flag was released in 2013 - one year after the release of the WiiU. And as a port it would only be using middleware, which probably wasn't optimised specifically for the WiiU.

But yes, as I said, it is an underpowered machine. It was at launch. nintendo have never released top-spech machines. But you can rely on their first party games to be some of the best in the business. I'd buy a new Nintendo console for Pikmin and Zelda alone. Anything else is a bonus!

[spacefractal]

I'm mind wii sport is one of the best killer app I'm have seen through....

Gpu is very great, but a around 1.2ghz cpu is the issue, and a constantly changed sdk as I'm readed a article.

I'm do guess project cars also will get cancelled on it. But it's does have excellent games from them self :-).

[Ian Price]

There are indeed some cracking exclusives - one of the best isn't a Nintendo game too - LEGO City. That really was a huge game, and had me genuinely laughing out loud throughout - the humour and story is great. Shame the load times are huge, but there's masses to see and do inbetween.

I can't wait for the Zelda WiiU - it's been delayed, but I'm really hoping it appears in some form at E3.

I'm also hoping to finally see some new Nintendo IP and new images/videos of returning familiar franchises.

As for Project Cars - I received that today for my PS4 (together with Witcher III).

[erico]

That is some good news! Hopefully it won´t take them too long to launch...<1 year.

I hope their curation on the games are better then the systems we currently have nowadays, which I like none.
Hardware wise, I´m sure it will be a good machine to play, specially the controls. 

[spacefractal]

Is "Splatoon" for Wii U not a pretty new (quite good) ip? 

[MrTAToad]

It would all depend on whether Nintendo would have the cheek to try and lock down the machine, and prevent anyone else from installing software...

[Ian Price]

Splatoon looks fun, but it's not really my cup of tea.