Nintendo has received a certification in Korea for a new, unnamed device described only as a “small video player.” The certification request was granted by the Korean Radio Research Agency, which oversees wireless standards for new devices.
The certification notice itself was released online (and was soon after posted on NeoGAF), but there aren’t many details to be found on the official form. The model name is “WIS-009,” and under the description the product is listed as “a small video player.”
Yup, that’s about it.
The certification was requested by Nintendo Japan and granted on April 18, 2014, but that’s about it. The timing does raise some interesting questions though.
In January 2014, Nintendo announced that one of its key strategies in turning the company around following the Wii U’s poor sales is to expand in new hardware directions. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata went so far as to claim the next major frontier for Nintendo was “non-wearable” health monitoring, but Nintendo has yet to detail what exactly that means. Whatever the device turns out to be, that the product is far enough along that the company would officially seek certification means we should hear something official soon.
We have reached out to Nintendo for clarification, but have not heard back as of this article’s publication.