NINTENDO ANNOUNCES "NX" CONSOLE: WHAT DAT?

No sooner has a new generation of consoles begun to bed-in than Nintendo announces its next generation of hardware. 

The Nintendo NX - likely to be a codename - was announced at a press conference, during which the company at last unveiled plans to develop smartphone games (a deal "intended to complement Nintendo's dedicated video game systems business").

Kotaku reports that Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata had this to trill: "As proof that Nintendo maintains strong enthusiasm for the dedicated game system business let me confirm that Nintendo is currently developing a dedicated game platform with a brand new concept under the development codename 'NX'."

We will. We will let you confirm that, Mr Iwata.

---

Quite what the "brand new concept" of the NX will be is a matter for speculation... and mild concern. Though the Wii U has at last established itself as a decent machine, it has done so through the strength of its software rather than the hardware. Unlike its predecessor, the U's cumbersome controller has failed to ignite gamers' loins in the way the instinctive waving-around of a Wiimote did.

A "brand new concept" could be a gamble for Nintendo, given the widespread rejection of Microsoft's Xbox One Kinect experiment. While many Nintendo gamers would prefer the company jettison its current strategy of seeking quirky new ways to play games, we say the following: "bring this on". 

Being incredible visionaries, we've projected our minds into the future, and can exclusively reveal the following NX features:

• The machine is so needlessly huge it has to be stored in a special annex ("NX") of your house.
  
• The NX is powered up only when the user can lower their breathing and pulse rate to Nintendo-approved levels.
• A return to coin-operated gaming, for that authentic arcade experience. NX owners will be required to pre-purchase "Nintendo Cents", and keep the machine running by inserting them in a special slit... without using their hands.
  
• Many realistic inflatable wyverns that pop up from the machine's housing, seemingly at random.
  
• Games projected directly onto your chest - you will interact with them by thumping and slapping... Even when the machine is switched off, and you're on the bus and so on and so forth etcetera etcetera or whatever.
  
• Wyverns... so... many... wyverns.
  
• Players will be able to take regular "gaming breaks" by pausing the action, and laying down in a special vinyl sarcophagus. They will be rocked and lulled by the mechanical hand of "Ramsey-67", a hovering android clergyman.  
• The machine will automatically switch off if the player farts. Please: no fartigans.
• Mario to be phased out and replaced with a new Nintendo mascot: "NaXio" - a chattering, jabbering, Grecian homunculus. Catchphrase: "NX (an eggs) for me!".
• WYVERNS.
• Built-in defibrillator and parmesan foam dispenser.