Report: Nintendo NX will get Zelda, Mario and Pokémon games within first six months

Nintendo’s next home console could boast a library of big games from the Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Pokémon franchises just months after launch, according to MCV. The British trade publication reports that the hardware, known as the NX for now, will receive these marquee titles within its first six months on the market, citing "sources close to Nintendo."

Leading the three games is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which Nintendo has already set for a March 2017 release on Wii U. Breath of the Wild, the first mainline Zelda game since 2011, is expected to arrive alongside the codename NX system when it hits shelves that month as well.

There are no details about what the proposed new Mario game could be, but MCV’s sources said that Pokémon’s NX debut will come from Game Freak, maker of the mainline handheld titles. If true, the Pokémon title would be Game Freak’s first series entry to ever hit a home system, although other developers have brought it to consoles before.

Yet the NX, according to earlier reports, won’t be a traditional console. The successor to the Wii U is said to be portable with an embedded display and the ability to dock it for playing on a bigger screen. Eurogamer said that the handheld/home console-hybrid will include detachable controllers and use cartridges, not discs, harkening back to Nintendo’s earlier years.

MCV’s own sources corroborated Eurogamer’s report, but Nintendo itself has stayed quiet as to what the NX entails. The company has referred to the unnamed console as its next "dedicated game system" in past statements; its president Tatsumi Kimishima also said that the console has stayed under wraps as Nintendo readies a breadth of content for launch.

We’ll finally learn more about the NX later this year, perhaps as soon as September.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Trailer