Nintendo is softening the blow of a rough financial year with some big announcements about the future.
The Japanese game giant, which has its U.S. headquarters in Redmond, Wash., reported that year-over-year revenue fell just over 60 percent for the quarter ending in March, down to 16.5 million yen, or $148 million, with an 8 percent decline in revenue to $4.53 billion, missing analyst expectations.
Slow sales of the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS continued to drag on the company, but Nintendo announced today alongside the earnings that it will release its next console, known as the Nintendo NX, in March 2017.
Nintendo also announced that the NX won’t be showing up at E3 in June. Instead, the console will be unveiled at its own event later in the year. In fact, the only game Nintendo will bring to fans at the gaming conference is the new The Legend of Zelda, slated for a 2017 launch.
The company teased the release of its next batch of smartphone games, following Nintendo’s move into the market with Miitomo earlier this year. However, the new apps, Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem, are based on familiar titles and will feature more standard gameplay rather than the social focus of Miitomo.
The new Animal Crossing will be “connected” to games on existing systems, so presumably players will be able to interact with each other in the same way as existing Animal Crossing games. Fire Emblem’s smartphone version will make the role-playing game more accessible than the console titles, but will maintain the strategy elements.
Nintendo didn’t announce a release timeline or release any other big details for the games. However, the company previously announced that it planned to release four new games in the next 12 months, so we should be seeing these games soon.
