Having made a much-celebrated debut on Apple’s iOS platform last year, Nintendo’s massively popular title Super Mario Run will be released on Android tomorrow. While the Japan-based video game console maker resisted the temptation of bringing its gaming resourced to mobile devices, it seems the company actually contemplated having the world’s most widely used operating system platform in its latest console.
If you remember, Nintendo explicitly denied in June 2015 that its next-generation gaming console, then known by the codename Project NX, would be powered by Android. The clarification from the company following a slew of speculative reports that suggested otherwise. As events unfolded in the subsequent months, NX was branded as the Switch and it didn’t run Android as the rumor mills had earlier suggested.
However, according to a new revelation by Cyanogen executive chairman Kirt McMaster, Nintendo actually wanted Android to power the console, and even asked Cyanogen’s help to make that possible.
McMaster took to Twitter to claim that Cyanogen was approached by Nintendo in the former’s early days. The tweet which has been since deleted read: In the early days of Cyanogen, Nintendo wanted us to create an OS for a certain portable.” He added: “I told them to stick it.”
A follow-up tweet remains online where he virtually confirmed that an Android-powered Switch “was under consideration.”
https://twitter.com/kynprime/status/844074260003938304
McMaster further pointed out that although the Switch doesn’t run Android or its custom builds, Nintendo still makes use of “bits of Android” in the console.
[Source]