'Kingdom Hearts III' To Release On Nintendo NX? Retailer Reveals The Truth About A Silly Rumor

“Kingdom Hearts III” has been confirmed for PS4 and Xbox One, but talk of a Nintendo NX version began earlier this week. As it stands right now, however, Sora and friends aren’t headed to a third console.

Destructoid initially located a photo of what appeared to be an EB Games Australia listing for “Kingdom Hearts III.” It’s featured placeholder release date was “TBC 2017” for the price of $119.95. That cost may seem a bit odd to those outside of the region, but it actually matches retail listings for other confirmed NX games like “Just Dance 2017” and “The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild.”

Beyond pricing, the most quizzical part of this apparent leak was that a source for it could not be identified. Destructoid claims the posting went live and was removed shortly thereafter, but no evidence of the change was available in the Internet Archive. For all intents and purposes, this product page appeared to be a decently crafted hoax.

That much was confirmed by a tweet from EB in the hours to follow. It reads “the item has never been available for pre-order on our website.” The message further asserts that “some amount of PhotoShop was involved.”

At this point, what little evidence existed for an NX version of “Kingdom Hearts III” has essentially evaporated. That being said, there are some anecdotal findings that point towards a Square Enix-Nintendo partnership being far from impossible. After all, several “Kingdom Hearts” titles were released first on DS and GameBoy platforms. Speculation sources have also suggested that the NX may be capable of running the Unreal Engine 4 technology that’s the basis for “Kingdom Hearts III.” Square Enix was also among the first wave of third-party developers to receive NX devkits too.

Regardless, these facts merely illustrate that Square and Nintendo have a healthy business relationship that’s helped in part by “Kingdom Hearts.” Especially if the final NX specs line up with recent rumors, it would take significant visual downgrades to get “Kingdom Hearts III” to run on a hybrid console-portable device.

Officially, “Kingdom Hearts III” is only in development for PS4 and Xbox One.

Would you buy “Kingdom Hearts III” if it released on NX? Is Square Enix making a port? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section!