NX is different, and different is Nintendo's best option

[Administrator]

Earlier this week, we reported that Nintendo NX will be a hybrid portable console, powered by Nvidia's Tegra mobile chipset. We'd heard both elements of this story as isolated rumours before, but suddenly - presumably in the wake of a round of presentations by Nintendo - we were able to corroborate both with multiple reliable sources. We were also able to establish a few new details, including the form factor, which intriguingly features two detachable controllers.
Once again, Nintendo has chosen the road less travelled. Assuming it's based on the Tegra X1 processor, NX will be considerably more powerful than Wii U, but it won't match PlayStation 4 or Xbox One for grunt, even as those machines are set to be superseded by more powerful hardware refreshes. (There's a chance it will get the Tegra X2 instead, about which little is known - but that's pure speculation on our part, and it wouldn't fit Nintendo's usual preference for mature, cheap parts.) NX will instead be framed as a unique proposition: a portable console that seeks to erase the line between handheld and home gaming, supporting TV display at home and local multiplayer on the move. It's even turning its back on optical discs as a physical medium for games, opting for cartridges instead. The notable concession to normality appears to be a standard control set-up that should support most popular styles of console game.
The fantasies of Nintendo fans of a certain inclination - and, probably by this point, a certain age - are dashed. Third-party publishers are not going to flock to this console; with its atypical specs and design and demographic, it's just too much effort to tailor to. Mario's makers are not going to slug it out with rival businesses in the toe-to-toe, gladiatorial manner that the gaming community (and press, it's fair to say) has had an obsession with ever since Nintendo's myth-making clash with Sega in the 1990s. And we are not going to see Nintendo's brilliant software rendered by the latest and greatest graphics technology. That last one is a genuinely poignant loss, especially to those who remember the last time Nintendo spent any time on the technological cutting edge - the Nintendo 64 era - and the eye-popping, mind-expanding games that resulted.
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