According to IGN's article which includes NeoGAF's translations of Tatsumi Kimishima's comments, the NX "is neither the successor to the Wii U nor to the 3DS" and that it's a "new way of playing games", and he thinks that it'll have a larger impact than the WiiU and not entirely replace it.

sauce: http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/05/16/nintendo-president-nx-is-not-the-successor-to-the-wii-u-nor-to-the-3ds

That sounds weird. Maybe it's an amalgam of all the good things of each Nintendo console, hence why he would look at it as something different than a successor.

Or maybe the translation went off somewhere.

I expect the system to be a hybrid of some sort. It will probably play both handheld and console games. Turbografix-16 did this in the early 90s. I am pretty sure they can do the same in 2017. Afterall the 3DS is like a handheld Gamecube.

How cool would it be if this device could sit in the middle of a table and be like a table top game. Anyone remember Dark Castle the board game? I'm going by the speculation I read about it being a portable with detachable controllers.

Would be great to get families together and interacting...and table top games are huge right now.

He'd be right if it's a hybrid because it's a successor to both at the same time. And remember, this has to be PR Talk because if Kimishima thinks BoTW sales won't be impacted by the NX, he has another thing coming.

Is Nintendo like unaware that you can connect smartphones wirelessly sometimes to your TV and play your games?

Nintendo is aware that people can't play breath of the wild on smartphones.

Nintendo making me ever more skeptical...

Not being a successor isn't the same as not being a replacement, for both 3DS and Wii U. And having a larger impact than Wii U is about the lowest possible hurdle to jump. It's the worst performing Nintendo console ever, and only marginally less awful than the last 2 Sega consoles. If I was hoping for NX to be a decent success I would have hoped Kimishima would have said they expect it to have a larger impact than 3DS.

And Nintendo will be dropping support for Wii U pretty quickly. Since there is almost no benefit in continuing to support it for very long after NX launches.

Unless it's VR or mind control, there are no new ways of playing video games. You have a controller of some sort and you have a screen. They might be meaning a new way of delivering games, but it seems like all options already exist: physical (disc / cartridge), download, streaming, buying, renting, subscribing. Is there another way that's truly new, or is everything just a variation on one of those themes?

That means it's still Gen 8.