Earlier today during the media briefing from Nintendo and DeNA president of Nintendo Mr. Iwata confirmed that their next dedicated hardware platform was in development:

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." It is too early to elaborate on the details of this project, but we hope to share more information with you next year.

Source, with some speculation in the article: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/03/nintendo_working_on_new_dedicated_game_platform_codenamed_nx

 

Before anyone says anything crazy, this does not mean the Wii U is dead. This could be the successor to the 3DS for all we know.

A while back they were talking about making a console that would be for less dedicated gamers and that would bring in non-gmaers. It could be that. This was years ago so I have no source to give.

It better be. I mean 6 years for new consoles was one thing but less than that? Come now Nintendo...

They mentioned this mysterious Console X a couple months ago too; it's by no means a replacement for the Wii U and it's not coming out anytime in the near future, they've said. It just takes a long time to create new hardware so they need a lot of advance planning.

It better be. I mean 6 years for new consoles was one thing but less than that? Come now Nintendo...

If this is the followup to the Wii U, keep in mind it's only being announced next year. I doubt it'll be released until 2017 at the earliest.

If they reveal it next year, it probably won't actually come out for another year or two. So I'd say 2017-2018. The Wii U released in 2012, so that would uphold the 5 (or so) year life span that Nintendo has. They've probably been working on this since before the Wii U even launched world wide.

 

I really think that the problem here is that they announced it too early, but at the same time I've read that they did it so that, in light of their recent partnership that's going to bring out Nintendo smart phone games, their fans would be assured that Nintendo is not giving up on dedicated game hardware.

Announcing the WiiUVWXYZ!

I really hope this isn't a new game console, since I literally am waiting for a Wii U to arrive tomorrow.