As previously reported, the NX will most likely be handheld-first console and will feature pair of removable controllers on either side. Several games have already been officially announced to come out for the NX months before its launch, and hype has been building up over its release. Yet according to Polygon, in recent interview with alistdaily, Nintendo is still not satisfied with the information they’ve been communicating with consumers. President of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime said that
One of the things that we have to do better when we launch the NX – we have to do a better job communicating the positioning for the product. We have to do a better job helping to understand its uniqueness and what that means for the game playing experience.
Riding high off of the recent Pokémon Go success with partner Niantic, Nintendo saw their profits skyrocket these past few months. Pokémon fever aside though, Nintendo hopes to set its sight ahead to its next console release, and they want to make sure they do everything within their power to reach out to gamers as much as possible. After the huge success with Wii, Nintendo failed to repeat the success with its later console Wii U, lagging in sales and residing a distant third place amongst other consoles. This drop in number of sales is reminiscent to Nintendo’s previous failure to find a large audience; the GameCube wasn’t able to compete with the other powerhouse consoles that consistently outsold it. So Nintendo went back to the drawing board and came out with the Wii. Company president Tatsume Kimishima has publicly said that they’ve previously failed to sell customers on the Wii U, citing the difficulties in explaining the console’s tablet-esque controller as a reason. But they hope the NX will garner similar success they saw with the Wii release.
However, it seems like they better start releasing more details about the NX if they hope to attract consumers based off its uniqueness. Some details have been released. We’ve previously reported that the NX will likely be a handheld device that will also be a hybrid, linking to your home TV as a sort of home console. Another rumor, which comes from several patents Nintendo released to the public, is about the NX having detachable controllers and also motion control.
Whether these details were officially released or not, most of the details gamers have wanting to hear are being kept hidden. Nintendo failed to show up at this year’s E3 back in June, saying that the event just did not match up with their strategy to launch the NX. Instead they’ve been focusing exclusively on a massive E3 booth for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. One of the biggest criticisms of the Wii U was the lack of library within its release and up to a year after it launched. Fils-Aime has addressed this stating that
We have to do a better job from a software planning standpoint to have that continuous beat of great new games that are motivating more and more people to pick up the hardware.
A full unveiling is planned later this year, which will, Nintendo hopes, increase the hype for its launch in spring of 2017.