Wii U Demise Might Come Sooner, 5 Mobile Games Scheduled

Perhaps there is very little doubt in anyone's mind that the Wii U is on its way out, especially after Nintendo confirmed the existence of its NX successor. But the ball might actually be rolling sooner than most of us have presumed. Considering Nintendo's notoriety as a slow moving dinosaur, it is almost unfathomable that Nintendo would be putting the axe to its somewhat failed attempt at a current gen console. According to WIRED, however, the signs are quite strong. And perhaps more importantly, rapid change might exactly be what the doctor prescribed.

At E3 this year, Nintendo didn't make as big a splash as its competitors, Sony and Microsoft. Of course, it didn't have new hardware to show anyway, but one detail did slip out nonetheless. For the first time, the NX was referred to as a "home console". Previous speculation left the door open on whether the NX would be a console or a portable, and now it is practically confirmed to be the former. As such, it will be a drop in replacement for the Wii U. But we'll still see parts of the Wii U legacy, as Nintendo's new gaming team, formed from the merger of its portable and console teams, will be working on a single platform based on the Wii U architecture, whatever that ultimately means.

But the death knell for the Wii U really started ringing when new games were announced, which was disappointingly few in number. If you have plans for a console to last longer, it would be in its best interest then to put out hit titles. What Nintendo basically did instead was to seemingly put the console on life support. After all, it doesn't make sense to prolong the agony of putting out and maintaining new games for something that will soon be left for dead.

The Nintendo NX, or whatever its final name will be, is expected to launch sometime next year. The company might very well declared the Wii U as "dead" by that time as well. Sadly, WIRED also posits that the 3DS will be booted out around the same time. While Nintendo's gaming handheld has done relatively well, perhaps even better than the Wii U, the New 3DS proves that the portable has reached its limits. At the same time, there weren't many new games announced for the 3DS as well, adding fuel to that speculation.

It's not all doom and gloom, however, particularly for Nintendo's portable gaming future. DeNA, Nintendo's partner for its mobile dive, has shed some rather positive light on the topic. CEO Shintaro Asako revealed that as early as later this year, Nintendo and DeNA's first mobile game will be launched. Sadly, there will be a long gap after that, as the next four won't be coming out until end of March 2017. Asako also shared that these five games will span different genres, giving hope that they won't be your run of the mill three-same or puzzle mobile games.

SOURCE: WIRED, Pocket Gamer