Topic: Should Nintendo change its announcement policy?

@noobish_hat Ok, no I get your point. I'm emotionally invested in Xenoblade 2. However, as we approach the end of the Switch's first year (and what a year it has been!) I think Nintendo have earned some consumer trust surely. They aren't treading water like they were with the Wii U and I think support for the console is growing

Lol, yes but Nintendo are all over the place. One day they are doing gangbusters, and then the next day it seems like the work experience kid is running the show. At least it keeps us on our toes.

@noobish_hat I take it that you're not a fan of surprise birthday parties either then? I don't like it when a game is launched broken and a company doesn't communicate when/if they're going to fix it (eg. DOOM Switch audio issue) - but, pre-launch, I'd prefer to only see/hear about games when they're ready to be shown off...a little tease here and there (like Pokémon/Metroid Prime 4) is great - and a surprise reveal is even better! ..but if we were kept totally up to date on every project, it'd be far less exciting I think

But there is very good reason for their 'secrecy', namely to keep the upcoming titles on the audience‘s consciousness and to have a short and effective marketing campaign for the game. Announcing Games closer to their release makes it easier for Nintendo to keep these games on our minds through ads and new information (like new footage and screenshots). And a shorter, more focused campaign lowers costs and the risk of losing potential consumers through radio silence. With games announced years away from release, you‘ll have loads of radio silence, therefore running the risk of consumers as they forget about your product. You‘ll also need make more trailers to rekindle interest and awareness of your product time after time until you can finally make a last marketing push to celebrate its launch - at which point some consumers may have already grown fed up with waiting, forgot about the game entirely or bought something that released sooner instead.

Personally, I prefer how they announce their games right now. Been burned too hard by the way SE announces their stuff (particularly FF15 and KH3) to care for something without any sort of release month attached to it. 'Oh, cool, a new Mario Tennis! And it releases in a few months, too!'. At Sony‘s E3 conference on the other hand, 'Oh, a new Last of Us? Cool, hope it comes out soon'.

To be honest I kind of wish Sony and Microsoft would take the current Nintendo approach (though I'm aware that Microsoft's 1st party support would need to be much better for this to work). Knowing that exciting news is constant (most months there's a Direct of some sort) is wonderful whereas for Microsoft there's just E3/Gamescom and for Sony there's only E3/PSX. Sony and Microsoft's approach is not viable for Nintendo because the strategy Sony and Microsoft uses relies on very strong 3rd party support (i.e. virtually every big 3rd party game comes to both consoles) which will never be the case for Switch because of the power gap.

Metroid Prime 4
Pokemon Switch
e3s in general

presumably after having to constantly disappoint the fans by delaying games for years (looking at you, Zelda).

Constantly as in a small handful of games in the past 10 years?

I don't really see this as an issue because these days Nintendo does not delay games until they're perfect, they shove them out the door when they are needed.

Nothing to argue here.

The days of Ocarina of Time style development are long gone.

Breath of the Wild says hi.

On top of this, we have a rather tiresome cycle of silence and rumours and waiting, for months at a time, between Directs.

They occasionally drop smaller titles in between. And rumors are not their fault.

Hype builds up predictably before each one, with equally predictable disappointment when they inevitably fail to deliver any megaton announcements.

Entirely subjective. There are plenty of fans that aren't disappointed.

Nintendo are really shooting themselves in the foot with this policy.

Switch sales say otherwise.

Obviously if you keep schtum for most of the year, people are going to expect the thing you are keeping schtum about to be something special.

Once again, entirely subjective.

Did we really need a giant cloak of secrecy surrounding the contents of the last Direct?

If they reveal the contents early, then there's no point to the Direct, so technically yes. Also, other companies do the same thing with press conferences.

There was nothing Earth shattering announced.

To you. You can only speak for yourself.

Even if agree with Nintendo's reasons for this policy, it doesn't change the fact that nobody else announces their upcoming games in this way.

They hold press conferences, so yes they do. Are you comparing 1 company (Nintendo) to a collective company on the PS4 and Xbox? Keep in mind the Switch revolves around Nintendo while the others revolve around several companies.

We're all used to having at least a general picture of what the next year or two will look like for the system we support.

See point above.

Rationally, we expect that Nintendo has more up its sleeve for the near future than what we have been told about, but, emotionally, we feel abandoned with no big hitters on the horizon.

Who's "we"? Who is "abandoned"? Last I checked, quite a few of "us" were thrilled this past year with the Switch. I think around 15 million people were thrilled.

Worse yet, we feel like we're being treated like children who can't be trusted, like we're being held at arm's length until Nintendo sees fit to dole out another pellet of information.

After reading this post, this argument sounds childish.

Should Nintendo go back to the way it used to be

Go to stores and seeing what's on the shelf? Waiting until Nintendo Power comes out? Which is it?

(and currently still is for everybody BUT Nintendo)?

Atlus, NIS America, Sega, Capcom, Sony, EA, Activision all hold press conferences that are similar to Directs. Matter of fact, e3 is still a thing. So no, it's not JUST Nintendo. Oh, and Sony holds Playstation events as well.

Personally, I'm more annoyed at Nintendo's ridiculous attitude of secrecy than simply not knowing about some games.

I'm having trouble connecting the dots here.

These aren't North Korean state secrets for Christ's sake. It's just some video games.

And we're not even on the page anymore.

You have every right to be upset about this, but your argument has more exaggerations than it has truths. May want to step back and do some research before ranting again.