Do you remember about 2 years ago at E3 2014 when Nintendo announced a new Legend of Zelda for Wii U. Well after two years, fans rejoice as the release window has been extended. It was confirmed by Nintendo today that Zelda Wii U will launch alongside the NX in 2017.
The twitter account also announced that the NX will be launching in March 2017, so it’s great to know that I’ll be waiting even longer for all this. The tweets don’t tell us whether we’ll see the NX during E3 this year, but they do state that Zelda will be the focus of Nintendo’s E3. I’ve never seen a company claim they will focus on only one game during E3, so Miyamoto might come out with a Master Sword again.
These announcements take me back to the wonderful year of 2005, when Nintendo delayed Twilight Princess so that it could launch on the Wii and Gamecube. This might also give us an idea of the NX’s graphical capabilities, because we now know it can run an HD Wii U game, but is that the extent of its graphical powers? There were some rumors around that the NX was going to be more powerful than the PS4, which goes against Nintendo’s entire business model. I predict that the NX will be about the same processing power as a Wii U, will probably integrate with Nintendo’s smartphone apps, and launch with the Wii U’s best games as ports.
It’s weird that we are seeing so many parallels between these Nintendo consoles. The Gamecube was a dying console when Nintendo announced the Wii, and the Wii basically took the last great Gamecube game and called it a launch title. So now the question is, will the NX kick the Wii U to the side and become a phenomenon like the Wii was? Guess we’ll find out in like a year…maybe more.