Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@westman98 @VoidofLight No you're right, the Go mechanics didn't cause a drop off. The casualization of the gameplay and lack of anything else new did that too.

No but seriously, it doesn't look like it hurt sales that much, but selling about the same wasn't enough to justify continuing it. The complaints combined with general boredom would've caused a gradual drop off later on.

Whatever the case, the more relevant analysis here is the question of:
1. Would LGPE have sold as much as a typical RBY remake on Switch (like, if they made CrimsonFireRed or FernLeafGreen or something)?
2. Was Go the reason behind the sales bump or is it something else?

And while we can't 100% tell this for sure (not without access to an alternate universe where they made CFRFLG), by comparing it to what some of the other games sold before and after it, I think we have sufficient evidence to conclude "No". It sold about the same as more traditional remakes and every Switch Pokemon game has had some kind of sales bump. If it were successful at bringing in Go players, we'd likely see more than a several thousand unit difference (like, it'd probably sell closer to 17-20 million than 14.53 million) and those Go players probably would not buy SwSh, BDSP, LA, or SV because it's too complex and hardcore and doesn't play like the Go gameplay they're familiar with. That's not what happened, we saw a handful of fans that bought LGPE and stuck around for the other Pokemon games. My guess is that most of these new fans came from Xbox, Playstation, and PC and accepted LGPE but also wanted console quality games. I'm guessing that in this alternate universe where we got CFRFLG, it probably sells around the 15-17 million range, slightly better than LGPE actually did here. You'd probably lose the few Go players you have but gain players that are more interested in traditional Pokemon games that aren't mobile waggle fests. So by that metric, LGPE is a failure. They'd be better served making more games like CFRFLG and less like LGPE and so they'd decide for future games they don't need to make more Let's Go games (this kind of decision making is a crucial economic concept called opportunity cost and business do this all of the time). That's why I think Go is dead. They tried to get Go players to buy in and it doesn't look like they succeeded in growing their fanbase relative to other options, so they went a different direction and we're not going to see a game like it again.

Also westman is correct, Pokemon game sales have fluctuated from system to system. DP, for example, has outsold both 3DS new gen games. This actually seems to relate to how well the system it's on sold, because most of the weaker selling ones were on systems that didn't sell as well (namely, the GBA and 3DS, the only two sub-100 million sellers to date). The only consistent sales patterns we have are:

1. New gen games > remakes > third versions. "Remakes" also seems to include LA and "Third versions" also includes BW2. The only exception to this rule has been Yellow outselling some remakes (FRLG, HGSS, and to date LGPE but LGPE could overtake it in future earnings reports as it's only 110,00 behind Yellow)
2. The first generation on a console generally outsells the second generation on a console (i.e. 1st gen > 2nd gen, 4th gen > 5th gen, 6th gen > 7th gen. Presumably the pattern will continue with LGPE and the 8th gen games outselling the 9th gen games). I can only see one exception to this pattern with BW2 outselling Platinum.

It's definitely odd how only Japan is getting all this Fire Emblem Engage promotion. Does make me think perhaps there is a Direct Mini next week, it could cover January - June but not mention anything about TotK.

@Grumblevolcano I would be up for an January Direct. What a start to 2023 that would be!

@Grumblevolcano They could absolutely do that. I will admit that I'm never going to expect anything other than February, if at all, just to keep my expectations in check. Plus I have a really big backlog to dig into.

@Grumblevolcano I don't think they can get around not lifting the lid on TotK pretty soon. It's 4 months to release and we know almost nothing, we really need to get the goods on this game. I do think we're getting some significant news in January and February, namely the following:

-Full blowout on TotK
-DLC announcements for Pokemon Scarlet/Violet and Splatoon 3
-New games revealed for Spring/Summer, with 1 or 2 Q4 games mentioned

A full Direct and a Pokemon Presents should both be happening this month or next month, and possibly a Zelda Direct as well if they don't want to cover TotK in a normal Direct. It's more a question of when than if at this point.

Things have been quiet with FE Engage only a couple weeks out.

Figure a five minute to ten minute FE Engage-only Direct is due.

And it's out-of-pocket for their usual February Direct.

@Grumblevolcano a february/march Nintendo Direct is very likely to happen, or Nintendo cound not do a Nintendo Direct until E3 2023(unless something terrible happen like world war third happen and force the cancelation of E3 again), we aldready know Nintendo line up for the first half of 2023, know we need to know the line up for the second half of 2023 and the holiday 2023 line up for Nintendo and @Bolt_Strike Nintendo dont need a huge marketing campaing for Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, 2 months will be enough to market the game(march to april)

@Bolt_Strike If there's a January Direct Mini, they'd have an early March general Direct which would start the TotK info blowout.

@Giancarlothomaz No game, not even a big, highly anticipated sequel like TotK, can just get by 2 months of marketing. You need people outside the core audience to know it exists and time for world of mouth to spread. 2 months isn't enough for that.

@Grumblevolcano Having a full blown Direct 2 months after a Mini is relatively pointless, especially if they're going to continue to drip feed game announcements throughout the year as they've come to like doing. We only need 1 general Direct early in the year to cover Spring and Summer games, they probably do not have enough news for 2 within the span of 2 months. If they're doing more than a full Direct, the extras would probably be either a Partner Showcase and/or IP specific directs like Pokemon and Zelda.

@Bolt_Strike The concept came from 2018 when they did exactly that. January Direct Mini covering January - June meanwhile early March general Direct covered beyond June including the big holiday title (Smash). The downside with that approach was it made E3 mostly a Smash Direct though who knows if E3 will actually happen this year.

@Grumblevolcano I don't think they have that many first party announcements coming, and if they were to do it now, they'd probably have the Mini be a Partner Showcase and the full Direct focus more on first party.

Still expecting 2023 to follow 2019/2021/2022 with a general Direct in February.

Yeah I'm expecting the next Direct to be a general one in early February.

Gut feeling says most of the post-Zelda 1st party releases besides Pikmin are remasters/remakes. Wouldn't be surprised if it's a Mario sports spinoff from Camelot in June, Pikmin 4, and then a bunch of remasters/remakes the rest of the year. Oh, and a bunch of DLC too cause there's a lot of that on the way this year.

I don't think we'll see Mario Sports since we have all the ones that are created by Nintendo's studios. The others are:

• Basketball (Square Enix)
• Baseball (Bandai Namco)

I feel it's more likely we instead get a new Mario & Sonic during the holiday season in preparation for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris meanwhile Switch Sports gets new sports throughout the year via updates.

@Grumblevolcano
FYI there was a recent job listing from Sega that indicates the next Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games title will actually just be "Sonic at the Olympic Games" (without Mario). According to the listing, it will be a multiplatform title released on all major platforms.

@westman98 Sonic finally got fed up with Mario beating him.

There we go, the Switch news section on the console itself just had an article with a 5 minute FE Engage trailer. Seems like probably business as usual with a general Direct in early February then.

@Grumblevolcano Interesting that there’s a 5 minute trailer via the news section on the console itself but not the YouTube channel. I also always forget there’s a news section on the system itself. Wonder how many people actually look at the news on there.

@FragRed I do just to get rid of the blue dot on the home screen. Plus I've found some interesting indys that way.

Everytime I watch something on TV that has ads (Hulu, Freevee, etc.) every set of ads contains an ad for Fire Emblem Engage. So there's that, Nintendo is doing some marketing for it.