Kind of thinking out loud here. Surely I'm not the only one who has considered this?
Nintendo has potentially filed a patent for a console with no optical drive.
Make what you will of it, though I have a crackpot theory of my own.
Let's say that this device really is the "NX".. Or one of the devices to be revealed under the "NX" umbrella project code name. It has been rumored that this will be a platform connecting Nintendo's next handheld and home console. I wouldn't have an issue with this. A major problem of their's is the lack of third party support.
I think it can generally be agreed upon that the 3DS seems to have quickly become Nintendo's main focus, to make up for the unfortunate loss that was the Wii U.
I mean, the only major titles that I can think of are, say.. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Bayonetta 2, Pikmin 3, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros., Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze, Kirby's Rainbow Curse, Splatoon, and eventually Star Fox Zero, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and Yoshi's Woolly World. The yet to be officially named Zelda title will probably be on both Wii U and the NX.
I'm sure that a few others could be brought up, but I'm certain that there are probably barely even 20 titles worth owning on the console. Mind you, the utter lack of quality third party software support may make it seem like less, but even spread over a 4 year period, that may be 5 games a year.
A multi-billion dollar video gaming corporation that can't afford to develop more titles than that internally each year? I'm not so sure. When there are barely any outside developers putting software worth playing on the platform, surely there's some sort of pressure to build a sizable enough library so as to not betray the consumer base loyal enough to have bought a commercial failure of their software device.
Perhaps they've felt that this was it. But their last two or three annual E3 showings seemed predictable, with no major announcements until it was probably too late. Now the most ambitious titles announced for Wii U in 2016 are a Mario sports game and the Pokemon Arcade Fighting game, Pokken.
Getting back to the NX; Just think about it. No optical drive? An SSD reading slot? It would make sense for the next Nintendo "platform" physical game medium to be cartridges. I would find N64-sized cartridges to be really cool, but I can't imagine how weird it'd be putting them into a handheld. Of course, I know that it's been done with third party handheld N64 consoles, but the cartridges would either be small and fit more with the handheld, or larger and more in line with a home console.
Anyways, there are also rumors of major Metroid and F-Zero titles being developed for the NX launch, which, whether those are two of the to-be-announced games or not, I can imagine that this launch will be strong. There was a hiccup with an accidental listing for a Wii U Paper Mario game priced at 60$ on Walmart's website, I recall reading some articles surfacing awhile back. Not sure how reliable the sources were, but it was quite possible that the title exists or is in development, presumably for the NX now, if not the Wii U in the coming year of 2016.
If the "NX" is the first Nintendo console in some time to actually see a noticeable graphical quality difference in the games, then now would be a cool time to release an ambitious Animal Crossing title. New Leaf seemed a bit lacking to me, but maybe I haven't played enough. It'd be ironic if the town is actually larger on AC:NL than it was on the Gamecube release and I merely perceive it to be smaller, but I feel like I can sprint from one end to the other very quickly. Would've thought that the towns would be bigger, besides the store/museum/tailor conglomeration.
A near-future NX Metroid title has already been remarked on, so we know it's only a matter of time regardless. F-Zero, I'm not as sure about, but it's also been discussed as far as I'm aware. I believe that it was actually in development and ran into some issues, but I might be mistaking it for a different franchise. Heck, even Chibi-Robo's developers have brought up the possibility of an NX counterpart to the Gamecube title. Surely there will be more exciting releases this time around, as I felt like they weren't very prolific for most of the Wii U's lifespan, even if what little they've developed internally has been great. Splatoon is what games like Pikmin or Animal Crossing were for the Gamecube; The successful well-received introduction of a totally foreign concept in that good ole' familiar Nintendo style. We need more creatively bold games like this to pad the NX library, even if they manage to breathe new life into tired franchises.
I'm going to wait on the NX, while I preview and buy the Wii U games that I want to play for the time being.
If this console really has no optical drive, it'd be interesting to me to know how they're planning on making the thing backwards compatible as I'm certain that it's been briefly mentioned before that there will be backwards compatibility. Perhaps you can purchase an install-able optional optical drive for those games.
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