new nintendo console

Amid rumours that Nintendo are going to ditch the Wii U, the Japanese company have now announced plans for the next console in their hardware lineup.

The Nintendo Wii U is failing. I know it, you know it and Nintendo very much know it. They’ve seen the results in their lacklustre sales figures (the company revealed that the console had only sold 2.8 million consoles in 2013, way off their estimation of 9 million Wii Us sold during the year) and in order to turn their fortunes around they need to do something. The main problem with the console is its branding. Many retailers have reported that consumers think the Wii U is an add-on for the original Wii while other consumers just think its family friendly stance and its weak specs just can’t compete with the PS4 and the Xbox One. This is not a problem that Nintendo can solve overnight, which may be exactly why they have announced that they are working on a brand new console.

The console, discussed by Satoru Iwata, the company’s president, will have a distinctly health-based focus, ushering in Nintendo’s new stance on ‘QOL’ (Quality of Life) as they seek to improve the lives Nintendo loving consumers and not just entertain them. What we also know about the brand new platform is that it will be based on non-wearable monitoring technology, meaning that similar to the Xbox One’s Kinect camera (which can monitor a player’s heart rate wirelessly as they play) Nintendo’s project will be hands-free and is also said to be the next step for Nintendo’s oft-forgotten about Vitality Sensor.

In addition to this, the console will be out some time in 2015 and 2016 and it will work with games in some capacity, leading many to think that this is the successor to the Nintendo Wii U that was been speculated about for weeks. The question on Wii U users’ lips, of course, is ;what does this mean for the console that they bought?’ It means a great deal, actually. As Nintendo have had a hold on the ‘games as fitness’ market for some time, with Wii Sports and Wii Fit on the original Nintendo Wii being high selling points for the console. It could mean that Nintendo’s next console is going to put all of its eggs in the health and fitness basket, which, without competition from Sony, Microsoft, Apple and many other tech brands, is a relatively untapped market.

That’s all we know at the moment as Iwata mentioned the device during a business presentation and not a product announcement for it, but as Nintendo are expected to reveal more information about the console later this year, we’ll keep you posted.

Source: Wall Street Journal