Last night, Sega revealed two new Sonic the Hedgehog games. One of them, Sonic Mania is a 2D platformer that brings back levels from Sonic, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic CD, as well as some new levels. I think this game looks great. But this post isn’t about that one. Rather, I want to briefly speculate about a little logo that appeared at the end of the trailer for the other game, currently called Project Sonic. 

I don’t normally post speculative articles, and the last time I did, basically everything ended up not coming true. But, I was working early this morning by myself and let my mind wander. So, I thought, maybe I’d share what I came up with.

Project Sonic was announced for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, and NX. This is not the first game to be announced for the NX, but in figuring out what the system is, it might be the most important. The only other games currently announced for the system are The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Just Dance 2017.

We know absolutely nothing about the console other than it is, in fact, some kind of video game platform. As for how powerful the system is, we have to assume it’s at least as powerful as the Wii U, since it needs to be able to support the new Zelda. But with this Sonic announcement, I think it’s become clear that the NX will be on par with the other two consoles. If it wasn’t, Sega would have to make a scaled back version of the game for a system that hasn’t proven itself yet and is following the Wii U’s commercial failure. I don’t think that should be a surprise to anyone, but it’s nice to have signs pointing in that direction.

The other thing I took away from this announcement is that the NX will support traditional ways to play games. This also shouldn’t be much of a surprise, even the Wii had plenty of traditional games. But outside of Nintendo, very few developers actually made “normal” games. Nintendo loves their gimmicks, and the fact that Just Dance is one of the confirmed games suggests that motion controls may still be a factor. But, if Sonic is also on the system, it’s going to need controls that support it. Zelda may also suggest that, but Nintendo’s been good at adapting their games to other control methods, so I don’t think it really proves.

So, what do you think? Am I just grasping at straws or do I actually have something here? Both points I made are pretty easy guesses, but the point I’m trying to make is that this is the first real evidence that they are real.

And, if you haven’t seen the trailer yet yourself, you can watch it right here.