After much speculation and rumors around Nintendo’s next-generation console, codenamed “NX,” a Nintendo Co. representative shot down the possibility that NX would be running the Android operating system.
There is no truth to the report saying that we are planning to adopt Android for NX
Despite Nintendo previously announcing it won’t be talking about the NX console until 2016, a Nikkei article became the cause of much debate after reporting that the new console would be running Google’s operating system. This report speculated that by using the Android OS, Nintendo could cause more developers to build games for the system, and quoted both an inside source and the recent move into the mobile market as the reason for this speculation. This was ultimately proven untrue.
The use of an open source operating system could benefit a new Nintendo console a great deal, since the biggest problem the Wii U faced was developer diversity. A strong first party lineup and weak third party support made the Wii U a “commercial flop,” being the slowest selling console Nintendo ever made, including the NES, SNES, N64. At the same time, despite all the advantages of an open source OS, its use could easily expose a system to security breaches and “homebrew” software development and distribution which in some cases could contain adult content, going against Nintendo’s target audience. The company’s latest financial report painted the picture of a company slowly recovering from a yearly earning loss that started back in 2012, although part of it’s recovery was due to “depreciation of the yen against the U.S. dollar at the end of the period compared to the exchange rate at the end of the previous fiscal year,” according to Nintendo. No NX news are expected at E3 this year, but we keep our fingers crossed that this new console is enough to breathe new life into Nintedo.
