The Nintendo NX has only been talked about in a brief passing during Nintendo’s announcement that it was jumping into the smartphone market with mobile firm DeNA as a partner. Despite that, much speculation has arisen on the internet concerning the direction of Nintendo’s next video game console. According to one analyst, the traditional home console may not be what Nintendo plans for the NX. Nicholas Lovell believes that Nintendo will be embracing the smart device era by creating a device that utilizes some of the same technology as smartphones.
My belief is that the Nintendo NX is, at its heart, a video game controller for the smart device era.
Nintendo will harness the wearable/sensor research that comes out of its health and wellbeing division to create a new type of controller. My current guess is a glove of some sort, but it could be a smart watch and a couple of rings, or something like that.
The NX device will be a relatively low-powered box that sits under the television screen in the living room. It will interface with the controller to allow players to interact with their games using gestures, perhaps touching a smart watch, or tapping your thumb and forefinger together, or some other movement that combines gestures and wearables.
Of course this is just as much speculation as any of the other theories we’ve seen about the Nintendo NX, but it seems to run counter to Nintendo’s direction with the Wii U. While the Wii U incorporated what could be considered a smart device in the form of the GamePad, that’s also one of the main detractors for many not having purchased the Wii U yet.
We doubt Nintendo will make the same mistake again and while this analyst certainly doesn’t have any inside information concerning the development of the Nintendo NX, it will be interesting to see if this speculation turns out to have any truth to it.
