With the upcoming release of NX - Nintendo's latest gaming console - one has to wonder how well Nintendo's NX will do given Wii U's lack of success when it was launched less than 3 years ago. The Wii U will certainly go down in history as one of the worst-selling gaming consoles of this decade as it is reported that Nintendo has over 8 million of unsold unit laying around in their warehouse.

What has always made Nintendo stand out from their competitors was being "ground-breaking" and willing to take big risks. Two good examples of this were the DS and the Wii. The DS is Nintendo's top-selling portable console to date and it basically revolutionized portable gaming by being the first with a double touch-enabled screen. Likewise, the Wii was also ground-breaking because of its revolutionary motion-controlled setup.

So, will Nintendo's NX be ground-breaking and revolutionary? 

After the Wii U's unpopular controller/touch-screen hybrid, the NX will have to offer something new that we haven't seen before. It is pretty much "do or die" for Nintendo as this point if they want to remain at the forefront of gaming consoles.

The good news is that it's looking like the NX will be both a portable and home console, and this is good because Nintendo cannot longer "bank all their chips" on a games-only portable device. Another reason to be optimistic about Nintendo's NX is that NX will have the same graphic chip as PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. That will make the NX a very powerful console indeed!

Nintendo has also a tradition of launching their new consoles with a new Mario game and that formula has worked wonders for Nintendo thus far, so we can expect the NX to debut with a new Mario game for sure.

What will be also interesting to learn is the release price tag for the Nintendo NX, which I hope will not be overpriced like the Wii U and 3DS were (one of the reasons for their unpopularity). If Nintendo learns from the Wii U and 3DS  marketing pitfalls, they will certainly market the NX as the cheapest "new" video game console on the market. After 30 years in business, one would expect Nintendo to know for sure where the sweet spot lays for pricing its consoles.

What time of  the year consoles are released is an important factor, and Nintendo has also a tradition of releasing new consoles on a holiday so we can certainly expect a holiday release for the NX. Rumor has it that 2016 will be the release year for the NX though this can certainly change. If you remember the Wii console when it was first revealed at E3 2004, the Wii ended up being released a whole year later. Then again, the gaming console world has changed so much that I'm pretty confident the NX will have a 2016 release date.

PS. Rumor has it the NX will run on Android.

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