According to Nintendo of America’s Executive VP of Sales Scott Moffitt, he told the Examiner in an interview that the reason for the early announcement was mainly to reiterate Nintendo’s commitment to hardware, which is why they decided that it would be a good idea to announce the console early even if there weren’t many details to be had at that time.
Moffitt was quoted as saying, “We believe there is magic that occurs when you have a marriage between the hardware, operating system and game content itself. It was important for us to recommit, on behalf of our game fans, to that business. We didn’t want people to think we were migrating away from that core principle, which is we believe in the power of dedicate game platforms and we are going to remain in that business.”
He also adds that this is something that Nintendo would typically not do but like we said, the company wanted their fans to know they were committed. In the meantime there is no word on when the Nintendo NX will be officially announced, but last we heard the rumors have suggested 2016, possibly during E3 2016.