Nintendo’s NX is one of the Nintendo’s best kept secrets ever since it was first mentioned by the late Satoru Iwata during a financial briefing last year. There have been numerous patents filed that may or may not have to do with the system, but more importantly there has been a whirlwind of rumors and supposed “leaks” coming out of various sources. Some of them are reportedly those with Software Developement Kits. Others could possibly be an internal leak at Nintendo of America. The one we’re covering today however comes from someone who has a pretty interesting track record with leaks. It’s a source known only as Geno, and here is what Dual Pixels has to say about the source:

“The source, Geno, that told you Nintendo would release a Pokémon game that utilized a full 3D engine (turned out to be Pokémon X and Y), told you there would be a new type of Pokémon in new said Pokémon game (Fairy), older Pokémon would get new abilities and forms (Mewtwo), told you the PS4 would be capable of producing modern day graphics on a DX11 level “like Unreal Engine 4 and Frostbite 2 (Unreal 4 demoed during PS4 release), told you Microsoft would introduce an omni projection unit that would let game environments to be projected in a near 360-degree fashion around the user (Ilumiroom), and many more way before there were announced is back to tell the Dual Pixels readership information you crave before it’s announced.”

As you can see, he’s gotten enough right over a number of years that what he has to say about the NX is definitely worth at least hearing out. Here is the whole of what he unveiled about the NX:

I don’t have many details on the device itself but I do have some background for it and some PR techniques they will use for it. A thing to note about this device is that much of it’s production was started in 2014 and many of the stuff I list here was outlined by the late Satoru Iwata before his passing. Hence in the company, the NX is considered the last project of their late president. Employees since his passing utter a phrase at the end of meetings and during idea brainstorms which is “岩田のために!” which roughly translates “For Iwata!” It has a wireless HDMI dongle that attaches flush to the back of the device. A user can pull it out and insert it into any display with a normal sized HDMI output and the devices uses an evolved version of the Wii U’s streaming tech to display in HD to the TV screen.

Allegedly the analog controls for movement has small motors in them for full haptic feedback. Meaning if you control a character and hit a wall, the sticks move away from the direction of that wall to simulate running head first into it. This can also be used for jerking when firing a gun, taking damage, moving over rough terrain, ect.

It can literally Bluetooth synch with everything, especially smart phone and tablets to the point where one feature is that it can answer phone calls and display text messages from your phone onto the screens itself so you don’t have to stop and answer your smart device.

The closest in terms of “power” it gets to is the Xbox One, but an app idea is Wii U x50 and Playstation Vita x100. The key is that all the tech is exactly the same hardware layout as the PS4 and Xbox One which then combine it with the OS’s strong emulation functions and compiler means that any game that can run of a Playstation 4 or Xbox One can easily run on the NX with near-zero modification to the original source code, especially if it runs in Android OS or Unreal Engine 4. This is allegedly why Nintendo has given out the dev kits so late, as one 3rd Party dev put it “It’s the easiest device we’ve ever developed for. You just take your code, compile it and it works.”

Look to Pokemon GO to get the idea of the type of social features that will be in NX that will take multiplayer, AR and the StreetPass concept to a whole new level.

The real strengths of the device is its usability and ease of use. Developers have described to me more than once that it visually and functionally looks as if “Samsung and the Nintendo 2DS” had a baby, in that it looks friendly but unlike what most people visualize a Nintendo device to typically look. The operating system, named NintendOS alone is very powerful and has so many modern features of mobile operating systems today that Nintendo is trying to be very careful in showing it off for fear that it would be mistaken as running Android. It also has a very strong networking functions as it ties into multiple devices and services allowing a very competent and pervasive eco-system designed to constantly involve the consumer’s lives.

As you can see there is a lot of juicy stuff here. The big focus should probably be on the HDMI dongle – this seems to indicate that this possible in a take with you anywhere system that can be plugged into a TV. However, the details are vague enough that this can’t be confirmed just based on the information given. Obviously most will notice that it close in power to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but what I find really interesting that the tech aligns in such a way that it appears to be one of the easiest systems yet to port games too.

We’ll see what this amounts too if it’s true. There would naturally be concern that it’s not powerful enough to withstand the PlayStation 5 in 3 to 5 years, yet we also have no idea what their future ideals are for hardware. If the OS emulates Android with the idea of unification that Apple caries, it’s totally possible there could be hardware revisions that come out sooner rather than later to make up the difference down the line. Again though, this is just speculation on my part.

What do you think? Thanks goes out to Dual Pixels for all this information.