Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Now Japan has closed all their schools for the month of March, one has to wonder how much impact this has on their staff? Does this also go towards delays in software development if staff are spending more time at home to look after children?

@GrailUK When Metroid Prime 4 was shown off, they only had a logo, not even a teaser, so I don't think they were very far in development. Late 2020 if we were lucky, but no sooner.

Maybe Nintendo say something tommorow as it is March? It is the weekend though.

@DannyBoi Doubt it. Not on a Sunday. Maybe this week they’ll announce a Direct. But maybe not as there’s 2 games coming out in March that will sell well.

Indie World is probably the most likely "Direct" for next week.

@Octane I'm the optimistic sort lol but you are more than likely right, the Prime series has a history of releasing later in the year

I knew I recognized 4th year being very limited with quantity of 1st party games for a successful Nintendo system somewhere before, it's the Wii and DS. The Wii and DS were such a massive success that Nintendo rested on their laurels from 2009 onwards and it costed them in the Wii U era.

This severe lack of games for those systems from 2009 onwards was what led to me getting a Xbox 360 in 2009.

I'm not complaining, but it is kind of confusing how they jammed everything in from June to November in 2019. I had a great time obviously, but not sure why they didn't sandbag some of that into 2020. There wouldn't be as much a need for a direct if they had a couple big releases in January, February, and March.

Animal Crossing New Horizons is one of those titles that was originally going to be released in 2019, likely in the already busy last quarter of the year, but it got pushed to March.

For me, New Horizons makes this the best early year from Nintendo since 2017 with BOTW. There's no contest, in fact. New Horizons is looking fantastic.

I'm mostly concerned with what little we know of beyond New Horizons. What have they got in store? Just a Xenoblade remaster? Come on. That was concerning that was the "biggest" announcement of the September Direct. Why is Nintendo being so silent?

The industry in general is being pretty silent right now.

@IceClimbers I noticed that as well for the past 2 months. Some news here and there, but near deathly quiet.

@Neoguardian86 Apart from Nintendo it was like that in 2013 before Playstation Meeting 2013 revealed the PS4. I'd imagine once Sony reveals the PS5, it'll be a lot louder as more studios will be able to reveal their next gen projects.

Tomorrow a new week begins and looking out for a Direct announcement starts anew.

Here's hoping we get one soon
People have been speculating that a potential announcement has been delayed due to the Coronavirus; if this were the case I would have thought Nintendo would have made us aware of this by now, similarly to what they did with the earthquake that happened a while back

Directs are pre-recorded. but I would have thought they would release a statement regarding if it was delayed for the notice of consumers/ shareholders

Thoughts?

@Josieppe The difference between then and now is that that direct was delayed after it had already been announced. If it was delayed now, there's no reason for them to let us know it was.

EDIT: That said, I still believe it was and is scheduled for April 1st 2020.

@link3710 Ahh yeah, true
People are hoping it'll be on the 3rd anniversary on Tuesday

@Josieppe MAR10 is also a possibility

My feeling is, that Nintendo will not do a general Direct in the two weeks before or after the release of Animal Crossing. I think they don't want to distract people from their new big title. So my guess is that we'll either see a Direct this week or in April.

I've got one word for you all: Coronavirus.

That was my feeling too. That's why I really thought it'd be late Feb. They're not gonna want it too near to Animal Crossing launch because it might make people forget about that if the Direct contains more impressive stuff. So I'm guessing either this week or at least a week after AC launch.

It'd be awesome if it was this week. FF7 remake demo just came out on PS4, so it would be the ultimate hype week if you added a beefy Direct to that too.