Following last week’s quashed rumour regarding Nintendo unveiling a new console at the upcoming E3 games expo, it turns out that all that speculation wasn’t completely unfounded.
The good news is that Nintendo is officially releasing not one but several new consoles. The bad news is that the new hardware will only be available in emerging markets. So don’t go trading in that Wii U just yet.
Commenting on the news, Nintendo CEO and President Satoru Iwata stated that the new products will be built from the ground up rather than repurposing existing hardware.
“We want to make new things, with new thinking rather than a cheaper version of what we currently have. The product and price balance must be made from scratch,” Iwata told Bloomberg News.
This marks a radical departure for the Japanese gaming giant, which – until now – has typically sought to sell the same hardware around the world.
However, this may be a wise decision on Nintendo’s part especially in the wake of China’s removal of its console ban.
The company also needs to find new markets to gain a foothold in after slowly losing its grasp in the West. Just yesterday Nintendo reported losses of almost half a billion dollars in its 2013 earnings report, which the company blamed on slow sales of its Wii U console.
