Developers Don't Seem To Know Any More About Nintendo NX Than You Do

Nobody knows what the NX is, not even Nintendo.

Nintendo aren't going to allow developers to say "we have developed kits of the NX and are working on bring our latest titles to it for launch". I would say with a high degree of certainty that Activision studios especially those associated with Skylanders, a series Nintendo featured so much during last E3 and even had some of their own IP included into, will have development kits.

I am really starting to think its a handheld.

We know Namco, Square Enix, Ubisoft and EA have some sort of awareness of it... guessing Sega, Platinum, Capcom, Activision and WB do.

Seeing it's releasing in March, it makes sense Toys For Bob wouldn't be planning to put the next-next Skylanders game on it when they usually release in September. (Who knows if Skylanders will exist after this game?!?!)

Now wait until the launch line-up is inevitably made up of just first-party software. Surprise!

Given how "secrets" are rarely kept secret nowaday I'm not surprised that Nintendo is sharing little to no info around, I just hope it won't backfire to keep many third parties in the dark.

@Dakt But what are these supposed leaks? Just attention seekers making stuff up on Twitter.

@goonow as a hybrid or just handheld ?
I really don't see how they could release a handheld in march 2017 without a home console... They clearly declared the death of the Wii U when announcing the 2016 planning for Wii U : practically nothing.
On the other hand the 3DS has quite a few titles over the rest of the year... So it doesn't make any sense to me for the NX to be an handheld. An hybrid or a home console ok.

@MrGawain toys for bob will likely get a Dev kit come September...

@Matbtz Nintendo isn't killing off the wii U, yet... Nintendo wants us to focus on Zelda, likely we will hear about wii U games after E3.

Not everyone is getting blocked out, as your article says. So this seems contradictory to the headline.

So much for those fantasy dev kits

March is exactly when you would release a handheld. I don't believe its cause of development problems. They just don't want to tell us its a handheld.

"Developers don't seem to know anything about NX". Article then cites 2 of them. And no offense, but it's hardly Ubisoft or EA we're talking about here. Clickbait title if there ever was one....

2017 can't come soon enough then.

Well... Big studios like Ubi Soft, EA or Square Enix must be busy working on NX since a whole year now. But they're harder to have on a mike
They will be on stage (or in the Nintendo Direct) the day the NX is revealed, for sure. So it makes sens

@goonow The MH is the handheld. NX will not have any handheld capabilities.

@Matbtz Hyrbid was just pure wishful thinking from some fans, Nintendo have never suggested anything that could be interpreted that way, and have even announced the codenamed MH handheld.

Makes you wonder: people who knows what NX is... if one night they drank too much and starts telling their friends about it and their friends post it on social network sites and it turns into rumours?

Things like that did happened.

@HSuzumiyaVI Hmm I'm not so sure... They want us to keep buying Wii U, that's okay.But I don't know why on the last direct and on the financial report for the shareholders they would keep some Wii U games secret... Maybe one surprise or two but that's it, no system seller.
Don't forget the Wii U sales prevision for that fiscal year (800 000 unit for that year...), I think that's says it all : Wii U is dead and buried.

@MadAdam81 Yes I know that a hybrid is a fan's whish but I'm just saying : release an handheld instead of a home console is nonsense for me.

And for the MH codename, Nintendo didn't announce it and that was just an interpretation of a journal. There is no codename MH. (The MH name was used in a report by the Morgan Stanley analyst as shorthand for a potential 3DS successor, but is not an actual codename.)

@MadAdam81 Nintendo have certainly not announced a handheld called MH. It was mentioned in a prediction from a business analyst. This is not an announcement.

Nintendo needs to open up more - unless skylanders is announced at E3 which seems to be the norm, come on Nintendo some killer games and Sony & Microsoft will change strategy as they always do copy not innovative like good old Nintendo Wiiu is a great console just needed a few more games 😂

"Developers Don't Seem To Know Any More About Nintendo NX Than You Do"

And that's the biggest problem right there; it appears Nintendo hasn't really learned much from the last few generations, and it doesn't instil much confidence in me that the NX is going to fix some of the biggest issues of its predecessors.

So far, Nintendo hasn't said or done a single thing to make me not worried about NX.

That's fine, take as long as you need to. Just make some good Wii U games in the meantime!!

Nintendo this is your problem and it could be your downfall. Let all developers in on it. Stop being so damn stubborn!

Alright, I highly doubt Nintendo would simply let any 3rd-parties on board go around saying ''Oh, yeah! We know what it is! Here's one of our games for it!'' until they actually reveal it. Besides, these guys aren't really big-hitters...except for maybe Toys for Bob because of Skylanders...what exactly do they do with that one? Do they develop the games, or just make the toys?

Toys for Bob blatantly know what NX is, I'm sure that was all said with a wry smile on their faces

Oh I thought you meant developers that actually matter.

Deformers seems like the perfect game for a Nintendo console.

if nintendo keeps too quiet for too long people will get bored and move to whatever is next in line

Lol: Nintendo goes back to cartridges so that the third-party's abandone Nintendo-devices for good! Nintendo, always the right ideas!!

Perfect. This song seems to be about Nintendo: Echo Friendly - Same Mistakes.

OK, I have 2 thoughts bout this

1) The devs are lying. We better hope this is the case.

OR
2) NX will be DOA. Because if no Devs know what it is, then there will be about 4 games at launch, all first party.

Hey Nintendo, you want people to stop thinking that you are going to abandon the console/handheld scene soon? Maybe stop appearing to be making the dumbest moves with your video game division (basically your only division) every moment of every day.

@Uncensored The high majority of video game devs have already moved on, as have the fans. Hence the bad sales of WiiU and only mediocre sales of 3DS. NX is supposed to bring people back, but as far as anybody knows, NX is simply two NES boxes glued together.

All I can say is a new 3D Mario game is coming in 2017 and Mario kart 9 2019

@HSuzumiyaVI So they're waiting for TGS to distribute dev kits?
Okay, please explain to me where it is a good thing to allow third-parties just six months to develop games?

This time next year we'll all be playing whatever it is...hopefully.

Just a little FYI on Skylanders, Toys for Bob is making this year's game, Imaginators, which releases mid- October, which will be all but forgotten when(if) NX launches in March. They are working on a Wii U version, so we should be happy for that. Beenox makes the odd year numbered games, 2013, 2015, probably working on 2017 now. Ask they if they have an NX development kit. If anything Nintendo would probably work with Activision, who would help decide which games to publish on NX, and Imaginators isn't that game.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylanders

Also, we are talking about a console launch and a game geared for kids. People buying a console day 1 aren't doing so for Skylanders. Parents will keep buying Skylanders for their kids on PS3 and Xbox 360 and Wii U. By Oct 2017 the next Skylanders game should be on NX, but Toys for Bob won't be making that game.

I'm not thrilled there are devs out there who may want a NX kit don't have one, but Ready at Dawn made The Order, a PS4 exclusive, what have they ever put on a Nintendo console, and Toys for Bob doesn't need one, they need to focus on Wii U, their game will be over before NX is a thing.

@BensonUii I doubt it, quantity of 1st party releases in the first year would probably be comparable to Wii U.

Well NX is long way of (march)a lot can happen between now and then.But All consider this ,with All the changes and Big news that's been Rumored PS4 Neo end of this year & Xbox Scorpio end next year2017,SO Who's to say that the date of NX will not Slip.

I fail to see the strategic advantage of Nintendo playing its cards so close to the vest. What are they afraid of? Sony and Microsoft already have their next consoles planned and seem to regard Nintendo as merely a blip on their radars, yet Nintendo acts like the NX is a state secret. For me, an admitted fanboy, I find myself caring less and less for their way of doing things.

I remember back in the lead-up to the Gamecube's release, a couple friends of mine were debating whether or not to purchase the system. One said, "Why buy a Gamecube? It won't have any third-party support." The other said, "Well, at least it'll have Mario and Zelda..." Same old story now, 15 years later. I keep expecting Nintendo to wake up and get serious, but it looks like it's going to be business as usual.

Here we go again.

@BensonUii PR talk.

None of the Nindies that I know of know what it is either.

Not that we would tell you.

My understanding is the Wii U will have strong Nindie support for the next few years, though.

I mentioned on another site that this isn't a cause for concern [yet] unless it's the AAA devs/publishers going, "We still have no idea." I've learned by now that those are what people are talking about when they say, "Nintendo needs 3rd party support."

GameTrust is a pretty new indie publisher (and a Gamestop subsidiary). Ready At Dawn is kind of in a weird position considering their development history and publishers. Toys for Bob would be the exception, but they're already developing for 5 systems right now. And by the time the NX comes out, talk of the next Skylanders will likely be floating around already.

@TheWPCTraveler Third parties should be making games anyway and then worrying about porting later.

Nintendo has a problem in my eyes. Even if the NX is the second coming of jesus, well...it won't matter. They can only fall down more. Climbing up is an impossibility. Sony can pay devs to just ignore competition and with Microsoft hitting the one year on tomb raider so can it. I don't even see 10m lifetime on this thing.

And no games on start, again. No games - no sales. Well done Nintendo.

This backs up my theory that all we are reading here on Nintendo Life are just rumours.

Jesus, it's like the E3 announcement all over agian. Listen, not all developers know about NX because that's just how Nintendo are playing it. The more people involved in your launch window, the more potential for leaks; I think everyone can agree that that's exactly what Nintendo don't want, and it seems like it's for a good reason (after all, they couldn't prevent SMD64 from getting his hands on legit info). They will be working with a select group of partners for the launch, and come reveal we will have a better idea as to what the score will be in terms of support.

Good.. It's respectable imo.
Just let Nintendo speak themselves.

Even if they did I doubt they would say so in a public interview when they are likely under massive NDA if they do know.

@BensonUii The money probably passes two ways. It's the unfortunate basis of humanity.

Wii U 2

@msvt You are that kind of sheep who believe in anything without concerns.

I wonder what's NEXT fot the Nintendo Nex??!

For the record I haven't gotten an NX dev kit yet either and I keep calling Nintendo and showing up at their offices and they won't give me anything other then a restraining order, so add me to the list of people who doesn't have access yet.

Maybe there's no info because NDA. I'm sure some one has said that in the comments already. Not trying to be all bright eyed and optimistic here, but I'd imagine most devs aren't going to say they are working on things paticularly if Nintendo themselves haven't unveiled it, let alone launch titles (sans Zelda of course).

If they don't have Dev kits, there is little chance that they will have time to even achieve a port in time for launch

First off these are not exactly notable devs here. Second this doesn't explain the rumors some major publishers have dev kits already. Also its highly likely they could be under very strict NDA

I'm sure the Internet was asking for total secrecy, after all that early revealing of the Wii U...

The headline sounds like a hyperbole of generalization. This is more like, "Smaller Developers, Such As Toys For Bob and Ready At Dawn, Don't Seem To Know Any More About NX Than You Do". Nintendo is courting the giants first; they know all about it, and they have more strict security measures. There's going to be some third party launch titles.

Or at least, there better be. Otherwise, the NX launch library is going to be about as tiny as the N64's! Which was okay for the N64, because Super Mario 64. But Mario isn't here to save the day this time, and Link will have his work cut out for him compared to Twilight Princess on the Wii. (Remember that Zelda doesn't sell as well as Mario, and is more popular in the West than the East.)

This story made the rounds on various sites.

But it is interesting that it is two developers. One makes one game series which may be slowing down (a competitor is already cancelled). And since it develops games for one publisher, that publisher may be controlling access to the dev kit.

The other is releasing its second game - though it does look like it could be of interest to those who play games on Nintendo consoles. The last set of vague quotes comes from the Gamestop publishing arm, which is handling the physical copies of this developers second game. And GS has made other comments about the NX, so it might know than it is letting on.

Well, maybe these indies should tweet Emily Rogers. After all, she has at least ten sources working for or with Nintendo who can tell them exactly what NX is and what it can do...

@rjejr Ready at Dawn made the Okami Wii port, so there's that.

Anyone ever heard of non-disclosure? Nintendo could have put some very nasty legal mumbo-jumbo in agreements if anyone were to mention they have a dev kit, or say anything about NX. They want everything to be a surprise, I applaud them. They're not letting anyone steal their thunder!

The angry people voice their concerns the loudest online, while there are many, many more people that are fine with how things are. Privilege, lean what it is and is not. If you don't like it, start up your own studio and see what difficulties arise due to people like yourself.

Did your parents teach you anything about patience?

@Li_Bae The GameCube actually had pretty decent third party support

Well.. All three (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo) have now announced some type of intermediate hardware upgrade in less than 5 years after launching this current gen. Microsoft and Sony have yet to let us know what the hardware improvements will net in terms of gaming...we do know the 3rd party's are not allowed to make exclusive games for the Xbox 1.5 or the PS 4.5, nor have a higher quality gaming mode...so we don't know why it's being done. Knowing this, I have a feeling the NX hardware will be more or less like a Wii U+++, still running the same OS and architecture... Which means in addition to new NX exclusive titles requiring whatever gimmick peripheral, the current Wii u library would run without a special mode.

Definitely not a good sign. Nintendo really seems to be blindly stumbling forward at this point.

I have a feeling that Nintendo is going for a quality over quantity approach with the launch games. As long as there is a fairly steady stream of releases for the months after I would be happy with 2-3 good quality games to play at launch rather than the 20 odd 'mostly' average stuff from the Wii u launch

Silence is gold. But silence about NX details could be boomerang for Nintendo. I know Nintendo want to surprise everyone but don't keep the secret too long or the 3rd party developer will be confused how to develop a game without knowing the formula of the machine. They will never create any decent games since the first launch. 1st party titles could be awesome, but that showing Nintendo just can only milking same brands over and over again. Please, Nintendo. That suspense is killing us, will it be good or disappointed forever ?

If my knowledge of making & publishing games for the Wii U is also relevant to NX, then it's not such a big deal.

Otherwise, it'll be a pain going back to square one, and that would definitely make me think hard about whether this is something I want to get into.

I think Nintendo at this point are trying to discourage people from jumping on the bandwagon: Either ports of games already out on Steam / ps4 / etc that do nothing to sell the system. Or rushed out games trying to make a quick buck, that likewise do little to enhance the console's overall prospects.

Plenty of devs know about what the NX can do, and have dev kits. Nintendo is extremely tight-lipped about this, so it begs the question. These folks who as we see here are so open as to talk about how they know little to nothing about the NX, how tight-lipped would they be if they did have such info?

@Yorumi They haven't confirmed it, but I'm willing to bet that Square Enix has one by now. When Dragon Quest X and XI were announced, they were listed as being released for the PS4, 3DS and NX. When they were asked for clarification, Square didn't say it was a mistake. They said they were considering it.

I don't really think the reason why those devs haven't gotten kits is due to Nintendo's secretive nature. Skylanders rivals Nintendo's Amiibo line, so of course Nintendo wouldn't give them kits to make Skylanders a launch title (which means Nintendo has to be getting some other games that will definitely sell the NX.) Also, Nintendo's made it pretty clear that their stingy with who they work with, especially since they continue to apply their "one size fits all" approach to who their market audience is by trying hard to make almost everything family -friendly (Except for Bayonetta. The fact that they ENCOURAGED the game to be mature still seems mind-blowing.) Depending on whether Nintendo focuses more on profits than image will determine what we can expect the NX to have during its first year on shelves.

I worry about Nintendo making mistakes of the past, and the last time dev kits weren't "out there" for devs, it equaled a less than impressive launch of ports/enhanced ports. To me, ports are not true "launch titles"-- you need original IPs and/or main IP's to appear at your launch to hit it out of the park, whether 1st or 3rd party software. The only way for this to happen is you have to give 3rd parties time to harness a system's abilities and make something truly launch-worthy. Otherwise you get ports and droughts until the good stuff comes (if at all). I'm not writing Nintendo off though as they are ALWAYS full of surprises, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

It's pretty clear that Nintendo aren't interested in 3rd party games. Seems like they've just given up. I wonder if they really believe they can sustain whatever NX is with the merging of their handheld and home console teams, all by themselves. :/

@Uncensored At least until the NX is actually revealed. However, in agreement to what you said, Nintendo has been very good at making people impatient, with stupidly limited runs of special editions for the zelda games and Fire Emblem Fates, TERRIBLE management of stock for Amiibo at launch in NA, and Nintendo's lack of communication with the gaming community in general to the poimt where Nintendo clearly doesn't focus on specific target audiences and more on people in general (which doesn't work because not everyone will be interested in games, period.) I love nintendo, but they still have a lot of crap that they still haven't cut. They basically started slicing with a butter knife instead of a butcher's blade. Nintendo needs to restructure their marketing and management.

And now everyone freaks out and says how incompetent Nintendo is even though several developers have clearly been given access to Dev kits including EA, Sqaure Enix, koei, Namco etc.

Also NDA's exist. For example "we haven't heard any new from Nintendo so we don't have any announcements" doesn't really sound like "Nintendo has told the entire company literally nothing about NX." Could easily just be a dodge.

@rjejr I admit, it would be activision how would have the dev kits, not games for bob. as for Skylanders imaginarium, i'd say they might have a few more tries till the toys for life business finally collapses in on itself. Amiibo however are specific to the Nintendo ecosystem and so hold more relevance than a game that has toys made specifically on being popular. the difference being that Nintendo made physical DLC worth buying and it will only cost the flat fee of an Amiibo. plus, there is Amiiquo you know...

@Matbtz again, we are going on by what Dr Serkan toto has said. which is more rumours. so ultimately the NX (or what other projects in Nintendo are) is like a Schrodinger's cat, we wont know if the NX is anything... all we know is NX is a codename, not like a wii, something Kimishima would play, Zelda U can run it, Rise: race the future is a game on it, Nintendo said it would be a modern console and that devs who received the dev kits claimed "it was impossible to run on a computer without using industry leading chips" and lastly the NX is launching in March 2017 and not revealed at E3 16.

Everything else is rumours.... including SuperMetalDave, Emily Rodgers, Dr serkan toto and Geno. Rumours begets more rumours, so i'd like confirmation from a person NOT making rumours themselves.

@TheWPCTraveler I never said that, I don't even know what TGS is... so, the idea according to rumours is that both PS Neo and NX would be revealed at TGS right? well, I'm not sure, what I did say is that Activision has the dev kits for NX devs, not the devs themselves. likely AAA industry has more dev kits than indies and AA would be Shin'en and likely the ironfall devs. likely Nintendo wants a wide array of games, rather than a centralised focus.

Well if the whole 'easy to develop/code' thing is to be believed. Then Nintendo probably thinks they could just port a ps4 or Xbone version of the game

@Li_Bae only the GameCube had very good 3rd party support. Just not nearly as good as the ps2 and the original Xbox had. One thing for sure the cube 3rd party support blew away the N64 and Wii u!!

My guess is that the NX will not be revealed till Augest or September (October at the latest). Based on Square Enix's comments concerning Dragon Quest XI and Final Fantasy XIV just a few years ago I feel they have been aware of it for a while. I bet a number of the big publishers have it like EA and Activision have them and Nintendo internal devs have moved unannounced Wii U projects to it as well.

The NX is interesting, but this is Nintendo they rarely let the cat out of the bag early and are probably waiting to see what Sony and Microsoft have planned first at E3 before making anything official. Nintendo might be using E3 to even court developers to their system behind closed doors so they can have an even bigger shocker when the NX reveal event happens.

So in other words: No news.

Whatever they do they better produce a larger variety of games then the Wii u had. At 3 1/2 years the Wii u, up to star fox has 145 retail releases!! That's horrible!! Then consider that the vc in the states is at 221 and the original Wii peaked at 412 vc games! If it wasn't for the fact that the Wii u has decent indie support you'd really hear those crickets chirping and your Wii u would have an extra thick coat of dust on it!!😃

@HSuzumiyaVI I really don't see your point... I agree with you on the "We know nothing about NX" but I didn't spoke about rumors at all. I just enunciated facts and just facts :
1°) Only one Wii U games announced after june for 2016 : Paper Mario
2°) Really low Wii U sales prevision for this fiscal year

So the conclusion I made from those facts is a handheld released in march and not a home console is nonsense for me. Unless they are launching a home console alongside an handheld only few months apart.

source : https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2016/160427_4e.pdf

Wait WHAT?! They don't have any dev kits? I was really hoping to see some third parties at the NX announcement thing they're going to be having later this year. Maybe they'll be given some after E3...

And who knows? Maybe Nintendo's given some to Ubisoft, EA, and the like.

@CB85 Just because two developers didn't received a devkit yet it means absolutely nothing.

Watch the language ~Undead.

@Goob "Ready at Dawn made the Okami Wii port, so there's that.

Well by all means, send them a NX dev kit then.

Sorry for the sarcasm, not personal, I'm still ok if Nintendo ignores them.

People asking about the NX...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bko6tsJv2Ag

Looks like Nintendo is trying to kill the NX before it's even released.

If Nintendo is anything to go by the NX farts out rainbows and unicorns and peace in the middle east.

@Ikramali MK 9 will release holiday 2017 at the latest, otherwise it would break the release cycle for the series.

@Endisend

Ahh sorry for hurting your feelings there, cupcake. Go ask mommy for some warm milk and put you to bed and don't talk to me if you don't like my reply, ok stalker;)

If developers really don't know than how can they make any games for it? There will be a lack of third party games at launch followed by a lack of interest as a result. Sales will do poorly and third parties will abandon ship again.

@Matbtz I think Nintendo wants to release a handheld in March but if rumours of 2016 is true, then its nearing a wii U successor (not in the vein of wii U 2 or the Super Wii) NX will be a lot of things and yes, giant robot is yet unannounced.

@HollowGrapeJ WOW Skylanders and Playstation game, what the NX can do without these games???? A ridiculous pessimist like everyone else. Just because they don't know about the NX this doesn't mean that the NX don't have any games besides Nintendo IP.

@Endisend You need to stop with the swearing, or you'll end up being banned.