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In March, Nintendo announced that information on their next hardware platform, currently codenamed NX, would be revealed in 2016. Since then, everyone has been trying to get the notoriously tight-lipped company to open up about the system. Even President Satoru Iwata isn’t immune, as he had to remind shareholders that he wouldn’t be discussing the NX multiple times during the company’s recent annual meeting.

Yesterday, DigiTimes went one better and revealed that Nintendo has asked their manufacturing partners to begin production on a pilot run of NX components beginning this October, “at the latest.” The outlet’s source believes that final orders will be placed early next year with mass production of the system set to begin by May or June. The source added that a July 2016 launch for the NX “may” be possible.

DigiTimes believes that Nintendo wants to ship 20 million NX systems in its first year of a availability, which would be more than any previous home console. This number seems like a rather high estimate as the Wii U has yet to reach that number after three years on the market.

The schedule sounds a bit insane to me (The Legend of Zelda Wii U might not even be out by July 2016), but if it is true, I trust that Nintendo knows what they’re doing.

Nintendo has had a very busy morning. As a coda to the announcement that they’ve partnered with DeNA to produce mobile games based on Nintendo characters, the company also confirmed it is not leaving consoles and handhelds in the past by announcing the “NX,” their next “dedicated game system.”

Details about the NX are currently pretty sparse. At this point, we don’t even know if it’ll be a handheld system, a home console, or some hybrid of the two. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata confirmed the NX’s existence during a press conference this morning (which is archived on Nintendo’s Investor Relations page) and said that Nintendo will talk more about the system, which uses a “brand-new concept,” next year:

As proof that Nintendo maintains strong enthusiasm for the dedicated game system business, let me confirm that Nintendo is currently developing a dedicated game platform with a brand-new concept under the development codename “NX.” It is too early to elaborate on the details of this project, but we hope to share more information with you next year.

The NX will also be built to take advantage of the new online membership service that DeNA will produce for Nintendo:

Nintendo, together with DeNA, will jointly develop a new membership service which encompasses the existing Nintendo 3DS and Wii U systems, the new hardware system with a brand-new concept, NX, and smart devices and PCs, and Nintendo will be the primary party to operate this new membership service. Unlike the Club Nintendo membership service that Nintendo has been operating, the new membership service will include multiple devices and create a connection between Nintendo and each individual consumer regardless of the device the consumer uses. This membership will form one of the core elements of the new Nintendo platform that I just mentioned.

If you ignore the Virtual Boy (and everybody does), the NX would be Nintendo’s tenth platform, making its codename rather appropriate. Personally, I hope they keep it, it has a nice ring to it.

Nintendo didn’t do so hot in 2013. Their sales projections for the Wii U were way off and the subsequent stock drop caused every gamer with an opinion to scream that the company’s fate is written on the walls in Mario’s blood. It also lead to wild (and often baseless) theories and rumours speculating what the future of the company holds. Especially after President Satoru Iwata told shareholders about Nintendo’s “new business structure”:

“We are thinking about a new business structure. Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It’s not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone.”

One particularly insane theory has emerged thanks to a report published on Gamin Realm a few weeks ago pertaining to Nintendo’s next home console. Considering the level of detail that their “inside source” was able to deliver, it is either too specific to be fiction or too insane to be real.

The anonymous report claims that Nintendo’s next console will is codenamed “Fusion,” which is certainly a lot better than Dolphin, and might even carry that name after it is released. The “Fusion” name is a clever bit of wordplay because Gamin Realm’s source states that the machine will merge the home console and handheld markets into one device. A similar device was suggested by GamesIndustry International last week, though it seems to have been written without any knowledge of Gamin Realm’s report.

The report includes a barrage of technical info, but essentially, the Fusion’s GPU is said to be capable of four times the number of teraflops as the PS4, while the CPU would be based on IBM’s POWER series, which in theory could mean backwards compatibility for Wii and Wii U titles. As well as supporting four “Fusion DS” handheld units, the machine would be backwards compatible with the Wii U’s GamePad. And not only would it be 4K-compatible, but it would also be available in two models: A 60 GB version with a Holographic Versatile Disc drive or a 300 GB version without a disc drive.

While it sounds like fan fiction and should be read while swimming in a lorry full of salt, it also sounds remarkably Nintendo-esque. The Fusion DS screen would still be sub-HD with a 960×640 DVGA capacitive touchscreen. Those in power at Nintendo have often commented that work on a new machine starts one year after the launch of the last, but this seems to be jumping the gun, even with the sad state of the Wii U. However, while Microsoft and Sony are busy slugging it out in the long term, with both companies betting on Cloud computing to elongate the next-gen’s life span, Nintendo could easily launch a new console within four years. The GameCube, which the Wii U resembles in projected sales figures, had a five year run before the Wii emerged.

Whether it is an actual leak of a possible design or just some blogger’s big lie, the predicted specs of the Nintendo Fusion can be found after the break. (more…)