The Playstation 4 hit the shelves in America in late November 2013, and has since been in rather fierce competition with Nintendo’s WiiU and Microsoft’s XBOXOne.
The WiiU was probably the weakest out of the three consoles at release, some even going so far as to consider it a failure on Nintendo’s part, while the XBOX’s inflated price put a small dent in it’s customer base but the PS4 has been enjoying increased popularity due to a modest price, large game library and user-friendly interface.
So, what happens when Nintendo promises the release of a new console in mid-July 2016 with Square-Enix’s next Dragon Quest game in consideration as one of it’s first big releases? Should Sony start panicking and ramp up production of the Playstation 10 to compete? Perhaps..Perhaps not!
The new console I speak of is the Nintendo NX, this is reportedly not it’s true name, however, and at time of writing, it’s true name still remains a mystery, in fact, Nintendo seem to have gone the way of FROMSoftware and withheld information from us until the supposed release date draws closer. Nintendo have said though that this new console will be the most powerful console of the generation, and have even rumoured an extremely low price of just $149.99!
So what does this mean for Sony’s little miracle child? Well, the jury is still out on that one, the Playstation 4 boasts extraordinary graphical capabilities, a large hard drive and a dedicated multiplayer portal while the Nintendo NX doesn’t seem to have much information released as of yet, we still do not even know whether it will be a full blown console or one of Nintendo’s much coveted hand-held devices, maybe it’s even both?
However, no confirmation has been given yet regarding the NX’s possible backwards compatiblilty with the WiiU, which, for fans of Nintendo’s last system will be a huge reason to invest in this new system and something it will have over the PS4, which abandoned backwards compatibility prior to release.
However, rumours have started to spread that the NX will not be as powerful as the PS4, while these ARE merely rumours, it shines a negative light on what people think of the NX even before it’s release, although power isn’t everything, in the inevitable console-war that erupts upon release, power will of course come into the equation and the NX’s lack of it will make for perfect ammunition.
Something else that sets off alarm bells though is Nintendo’s rather hasty release date, Nintendo haven’t said how long they’ve been working on this new console, but one year doesn’t exactly seem like a great deal of time to polish up something that is in direct competition with one of the best consoles of the current-gen, does it?
This release date appears as more of a place holder, a kind of “Give us a few more months and we can tell you for certain” approach, but this is all hearsay on the behalf of this article. So, the take away from all this? For the moment, in the endless fire fight that is the gaming industry, I think the PS4 is still sitting pretty comfortably, it’ll take a lot of work on Nintendo’s part to make this console into something that can cannonball the PS4 into the waters of mediocrity.
Nintendo has said that sometime in 2016, they will release more information on their enigmatic NX, hopefully this will also include a definite release date, details on whether or not it will be backwards compatible and possibly even updates regarding possible games.
