Back in 2015, before Nintendo was ready to fully unveil the Nintendo Switch, the console was teased as the codename NX. Nintendo kept up the secrecy for a while, continually hyping the NX console for well over a year until they debuted the finalized system as the Switch in late 2016. After that, the NX joined the list of in-development Nintendo monikers such as Revolution and Cafe, never to be used again.

Now, years later, we get to refamiliarize ourselves with the NX, thanks to the leak of a prototype game. An early development build of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was dumped, with a build date two days prior to the reveal of the Switch's final name, which occurred on October 20, 2016. This supposed beta came from what is claimed to be an early EMMC ODIN board, with footage already uploaded to YouTube.

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In addition to the Mario Kart 8 prototype, which has a debug menu and numerous in-development options, was a short boot animation. Many are familiar with the snap of Joy-Cons heard when you boot a Switch, but before that was the final design, Nintendo had a working NX logo and animation, which haven't been seen before. The MK8D prototype is already running on emulators via a patch, and is currently being datamined.

The Nintendo Switches Codename was the NX and this was an early Logo / Boot Up animation used during development of the Console ( It was found in the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Prototype ) This was never seen outside Nintendo pic.twitter.com/B1bS5zCKOu

— @pfkelly.bsky.social 📯🦝 CORPONATION Out TODAY (@PaulFelixKelly) November 20, 2022

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[Reploid]

I liked NX name better, and logo now too.

 

[Deleted member 194275]

and that ball rolling? why? Was that a scrapped idea?

 

[AxlSt00pid]

and that ball rolling? why? Was that a scrapped idea?

They teased JoyCon Drift before it was cool

 

[lattechan]

Oh yeah I remember why I don't look at twitter anymore. AyugaWind had a good response though.

 

[CompSciOrBust]

I wonder how much cool stuff was lost never to be seen again because of people buying up those 64GB odin eMMCs from AliExpress just so they could upgrade their internal storage.

 

[PopcornSweetie]

View attachment 339095
Oh yeah I remember why I don't look at twitter anymore. AyugaWind had a good response though.

The dude above is a troll. He just tweeted that so he can get attention (winch he got from AyugaWind)

 

[HarveyHouston]

Wow, look at all the Marios! I want his version of Mario Kart!

 

[Hiccup]

Might be a good idea to have a news post and pin in the switch section about these chips - saying you should dump (and release) before/instead of wiping them and using them to expand your storage.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Nintendo's prototype names are so much cooler than the final ones, imo.

Dolphin = GCN (I actually love they named it GameCube)
Revolution = Wii (Revolution would've been awesome)
WU = Wii U (bad, should've been named Wii Pro or something)
NX = Switch (not a bad name, it's catchy and memorable)

 

[CompSciOrBust]

Might be a good idea to have a news post and pin in the switch section about these chips - saying you should dump (and release) before/instead of wiping them and using them to expand your storage.

Can you even still buy them? They were widely available on AliExpress for a year and then I never saw them again. I tried hard to find one before the OLED model came out but they were all either reballed retail boards or sellers lying about what they had passing off 32gb boards as 64gb boards.

 

[playstays_shun]

That clip makes it look like the Steam Deck dumpling a bit

 

[1B51004]

WOAW
THE NEWS KEEPS ON COMING
THATS ACTUALLY INSANE
like im not being sarcastic thats actually really cool

(edit: downloaded the MK8DX prototype video just in case the original gets taken down. Quality is poor but I still got everything shown in the video)

 

[x65943]

I wonder if the animation was meant to showcase HD rumble

I remember nintendo marketed the HD rumble hard before never talking about it again a few months after launch

The animation makes me think of that ice cube game in 1 2 switch

 

[diggeloid]

Damn now I'm curious what hardware gimmick that rolling ball animation could have been about. The new one has the joycons clicking into place for obvious reasons, so maybe that ball is a hint about something that got scrapped?? Maybe the Switch was originally going to be spherical!?

 

[x65943]

Damn now I'm curious what hardware gimmick that rolling ball animation could have been about. The new one has the joycons clicking into place for obvious reasons, so maybe that ball is a hint about something that got scrapped?? Maybe the Switch was originally going to be spherical!?

Probably hd rumble

 

[Marc_LFD]

Probably hd rumble

I had high expectations for HD Rumble since it felt so good, but years have passed and Nintendo seems to have forgotten about it pretty much.

1-2 Switch is the tech demo that showed how good that technology could have been used. Even Mario Kart 8 Deluxe didn't make much use of it or any.

 

[lattechan]

Damn now I'm curious what hardware gimmick that rolling ball animation could have been about. The new one has the joycons clicking into place for obvious reasons, so maybe that ball is a hint about something that got scrapped?? Maybe the Switch was originally going to be spherical!?

Imagine holding 2 of these bad boys in each hand playing pokemon like never before

HACKERMAN: IM IN

 

[x65943]

I had high expectations for HD Rumble since it felt so good, but years have passed and Nintendo seems to have forgotten about it pretty much.

1-2 Switch is the tech demo that showed how good that technology could have been used. Even Mario Kart 8 Deluxe didn't make much use of it or any.

Me too, it seemed so cool back then

Sadly it went the way of all Nintendo gimmicks. Every console they push some gimmick that becomes useless almost immediately, and every time I still think it will be used for something

Wii u gamepad went basically unused even in first party titles

 

[lattechan]

Every console they push some gimmick that becomes useless almost immediately,

every damn time