With Nintendo’s relative silence about the Nintendo NX, consumers have been speculating when they plan to unveil it and release it. Some rumors have suggested that the Nintendo NX will be ready to go for the holiday season in 2016, but noted analyst Michael Pachter feels as though that timetable is a little bit too optimistic for the way Nintendo has operated in the past.
According to Pachter, it takes Nintendo about 18 months from the initial unveiling of the console to launch. That doesn’t leave developers enough time to create games for the NX unless there are dev kits already in the wild. Here’s what Pachter said:
Nintendo’s past practice has been to announce their next generation consoles at E3, and to release them 18 months later. And they typically will have a prototype and a couple of game markups… where you can play something.
But they take about 18 months, and last I checked we don’t have 18 months until the end of 2016. So, it is less likely that something is coming out in 2016. But, the rumours are that there are NX dev kits out there. We don’t know how long they have been out there, but if the rumour has leaked they have probably been out a couple of months. It is really slightly possible that developers can make something for NX console launch in fall 2016, and do a quality product in 13 – 15 months. Slightly possible.
Notice Pachter doesn’t say the system won’t launch in 2016, because it’s always possible that Nintendo will throw a curveball. But given the time between announcement and launch for previous consoles, he could be right on this one.
What do you think? When do you think the Nintendo NX will launch?
