Nintendo's New NX Console May Be Coming as Soon as Mid 2016

Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima recently gave an interview with Time Magazine where he revealed a tiny bit of new news about the Nintendo NX console: it won't be another Wii, but the company also isn't ready to bail on the Wii U:

I can assure you we’re not building the next version of Wii or Wii U. It’s something unique and different. It’s something where we have to move away from those platforms in order to make it something that will appeal to our consumer base.

As for the Wii U, Kimishima wants to make sure the 10 million people who own one aren't left in the dust: 

I think our first job right now is to make sure that the customers, those 10 million customers who have a Wii U at home have software to play. And we need to make sure that they are satisfied with their purchase and continue to enjoy playing on this platform. So we can’t just abandon them and say ‘Hey, it’s time to move on to the next thing.’ Of course we are working on NX and looking at the experiences we can bring to that platform. But first our job at this point is to support the consumers who have purchased Wii U and make sure that they have software experiences available to them.

We know the NX is, hardware wise, supposed to be more powerful than Nintendo consoles past, putting it at least in line with what the PS4 and Xbox One can do. Whether or not that's true remains to be seen, but we may not have to wait long to find out. Kimishima remained mum about a release date for the console, saying the company would reveal more details next year, but manufacturers are prepared to begin production in the first quarter of 2016 for a mid-2016 release.