With official details scarce, the rumor mill for Nintendo’s next console, simply dubbed Nintendo NX, has been spinning out of control. For instance, it’ll supposedly be both a handheld and home console, and it’ll have detachable controllers, and Nintendo (a company not none for cranking out its first-party titles on a regular basis) will produce a new Zelda, Mario, and Pokémon within six months of the console’s launch. Well, the latest rumor for the NX is another interesting development.
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter,” the NX will use cartridges, not discs.
At first glance, this might seem like another case of Nintendo bizarrely choosing to do its own thing despite industry trends, but it actually makes a decent amount of sense if the console is in fact portable. Discs never really took off as portable storage devices for games because of their fragility. Sony abandoned discs between the PSP and PS Vita for cartridges, and Nintendo handhelds have always used cartridges, starting with the original Game Boy and going all the way to the 3DS.
Assuming previous rumors about the Nintendo NX are true, this new piece of information actually fits quite nicely into what we know.
Nintendo’s mysterious console is set to release in March 2017, with its first reveal coming sometime later this year.