Right now we know only two things about the Nintendo NX: It’s coming in March 2017, and we’re getting an NX version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Now we can add a third known quantity – Pokémon titles are coming to the Nintendo NX.
Tsunekazu Ishihara, The Pokémon Company president, dropped a big hint toward revealing the nature of the upcoming console in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal. “The NX is trying to change the concept of what it means to be a home console device or a hand-held device,” Isihiara stated in the interview. “We will make games for the NX.”
It’s entirely possibly that Ishihara knows only as much as the general public. Nintendo owns about 1/3 of The Pokémon Company, and they largely operate on their own.
The comment about making Pokémon games for the NX should be tempered as well. To date, the mainline series have always been on a handheld. Numerous spin-offs have made their way to the main consoles, such as Pokken Tournament on the Wii U.
This could also be an exciting tease into what the Nintendo NX is capable of. Rumors have been spreading that Nintendo’s next console is a unique hybrid of console and handheld, using game cartridges and detachable controllers. Pokémon would certainly be poised to lead that charge.
At this juncture we still don’t have official confirmation of how the Nintendo NX works, or even what its actual name is. Nintendo had assured us that we’d know more by the end of 2016.
The Nintendo NX is currently slated for a March 2017 launch. The next Pokémon title, Sun and Moon, is due November 18.
