When Can We Expect the Nintendo NX to Hit the Market?

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Lastwii u on store shelves week in an interview with Time Magazine, Nintendo President, Tatsumi Kimishshima mentioned that even after Nintendo’s next console (the NX) launches, Nintendo still plans to continue to make software (presumably, games) to support Wii U owners. As a Nintendo fan having lived through previous lean Nintendo years, I was a bit skeptical about this which has me wondering, when can we expect Nintendo to cut back (or even end) its investment into the Wii U?

To estimate this, first let’s see all of Nintendo’s consoles and how they’ve done:

Console Sales (millions) Release Year  Interval Between Releases Lifespan Number of Years
NES 61.91 1983 – 1983-1995 12
SNES 49.1 1990 7 1990-2003 13
Nintedo 64 32.93 1996 6 1996-2003 7
Game Cube 21.74 2001 5 2001-2007 6
Wii 101.18 2006 5 2006-2013 7
Wii U 11.25 2012 6 2012-?? 4  (and counting)

This would be consistent with the lifespan of the Game Cube (Nintendo’s next poorest performing system). If the Wii U gets discontinued a year after NX is launched, it will have lived 1 year shorter than the Game Cube- reasonable given the Wii U has performed significantly worse than the Game Cube did.As you can see, the Wii U has sold about half as well as Nintendo’s next poorest performing system! Given that, I really would not be surprised to see the NX launch in 2016 or at the latest, early 2017. It would mark the shortest console lifespan in Nintendo’s history but given how poorly the Wii U has performed and how totally different the NX will be:

  • I’m confident hard-core fans will be comfortable with the move- I would consider myself a hard-core fan and would certainly be fine with it. Between the fact that the Wii U is reasonably inexpensive and there aren’t very many awesome games on the system, it’s not like fans will have invested that much into the console anyways. 😉
  • As a compromise for Wii U owners, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Nintendo do what they did with the Game Cube. Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on both the Game Cube and Wii shortly before the Game Cube was discontinued. Given the new Legend of Zelda game was recently delayed, maybe this is a sign we can expect that game will be launched on both the Wii U and NX…

Whatever the case may be, I will certainly welcome Nintendo’s new console with open arms (as well as new Zelda and Metroid games please… 🙂

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