Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@Dom_31 honestly i think it could end up being better that way lol

I think there's a decent chance of Deep Cut amiibo announced in the next Direct, Off the Hook amiibo were announced on February 11th 2018.

There's a key difference between the two though. With new hardware there is always going to be new hardware, technology marches on. If a Switch successor was launched in June this year the Switch would still be the longest lived Nintendo console outside of the original GameBoy. That's a long time to not release improved hardware. But with the success of the Switch platform generally? It makes some sense not to entirely reset with a new platform. So for Switch a "Pro" or "New" SKU makes a hell of a lot of sense, like how Nintendo transitioned from GB to Pocket to GBC, DS to DS Lite to DSi and 3DS to 3DS XL/2DS to New 3DS

There will be new hardware, there is always new hardware. That hardware will more than likely leverage the existing Switch library in some way. To me that has always made sense and still makes sense. Whether or not you want to call that "Pro"? I don't care. The discussion about what we call that new hardware is a boring semantic debate. It's just marketing, it doesn't matter

The "Mario Movie Tie In" bit though? That's different. That's nothing but a fan wish based on nothing much more than wild stabs in the dark. I mean sure, theoretically it makes some surface level sense to do that kind of cross promotion. But we're talking about multi-year potentially fairly complicated projects here. You don't really want to tie yourself into simultaneous releases when any one of them could be delayed. More to the point, when has Nintendo ever been good at lining up projects for milestones or events?

I mean sure they could have something in the works and it makes sense for them to have something in the works given how long it has been since Odyssey. But whether that's this year or next is something that's impossible to know. Might it end up lining up with the release of the movie? Yes, possibly even by chance. Will they leverage some of the ideas from the movie or visa versa? Sure, wouldn't be the first time. Are they going to tie themselves in knots to achieve this? ..... I don't think so

I saw this Zelda OLED switch on reddit. Not sure if it's fake or not.

@JesseA It's been around for a few weeks and no verified leaker confirmed or talked about it from what I know so don't get your hopes up.
Good indicator that this might be fake is the backside of the Switch - it has no motive compared to the other switch models. You'd think they'd do something special for a Zelda edition

It's past 3pm UK time which means if there is a Direct on Tuesday, the announcement is less than 24 hours away.

@Grumblevolcano Out of interest, have there ever been any Directs on a weekend?

Probably not. Then again, this is nintendo we're talking about, so anything is possible.

@TeaCatherine It's very rare but yes, there has been. A Smash 3DS/Wii U Direct was on a Sunday which revealed a bunch of stuff including Roy (FE) and Ryu, also not specifically a Direct but last year's Pokemon Presents was on a Sunday.

@Grumblevolcano So, there's never been a general Direct on one, thanks for the information. Is there actually any info pointing to next Tuesday for one?

@skywake Nintendo releasing a new 2D/3D Mario game, is the perfect marketing oportunity for them, Mario popularity will skyrocket because of the movie, and Nintendo should take oportunity of this,and release a new 2D/3D Mario game

@TeaCatherine Excluding rumours, regarding Tuesday specifically there's 2 things. 1 is that the September 2022 Direct was on a Tuesday so they may repeat it and the other is that Nintendo earnings report is on February 7th. With the latter point, the Direct may answer shareholders' questions before they ask them like I'd guess there'd be questions about whether Advance Wars and Metroid Prime 4 are cancelled.

@skywake
I agree that Switch Pro speculation made sense...up until the announcement and launch of the Switch OLED model. Now it doesn't make sense anymore and is the equivalent to spreading a myth that will clearly not happen anymore.

But technology doesn't consistently "march on". Refrigerators, violins, toilets, paper clips, nail clippers, and phoroptors are all similar or identical to how they were in 1950. Sometimes a good idea doesn't need to be continuously improved upon. Video game consoles have evolved a lot over the last 40 years, but graphically the difference between generations is getting smaller and smaller and the graphical improvement will only go so far (an observation made by Satoru Iwata back in the Gamecube era). Compare NES to SNES or SNES to N64 or even N64 to Gamecube with Wii U to Switch. And there are upper limits on every aspect of what the human visual system is even able to process (be it resolving fine details, distinguishing colours, distinguishing contrast, depth perception, motion perception, field of view, or aligning figures), even among people with very good vision. With that in mind, it would not at all be surprising if video game console generations gradually got longer (10, 15, or 20 years) or even if the Switch was Nintendo's final major console (few would've anticipated Nintendo adopting a one-machine strategy ten years ago). Sony and Microsoft's last few consoles lasted 7-8 years. Far as I'm concerned, there's no need for Nintendo to lock its new releases behind a new $400+ console unless the new console can do something critical the current Switch can't. Unless that happens, they can keep making Switch games until the end of time.

I'm not convinced Nintendo are a company that would just go with a movie tie in video game. Their creativity is like the pinnacle of the industry and that's a little low hanging fruit for them. I dunno.

@GrailUK In my opinion you're right, they might announce a new Mario sometime this year but I don't think it would be a tie in.
@Grumblevolcano That doesn't seem like very much to go on, but those two things will probably be in the next direct and it does sort of make sense.

@GrailUK yeah, the most I can see them do would be include the movie versions of the characters in some sort of multiplayer game as skins, so to speak, but even that seems unlikely because there isn't...anything like that that's actually relevant right now.

The sports games were all trash, Mario Party happened fairly long ago by now, I doubt they'd add a bunch of characters to Mario Kart 8 DX at this point - and the character select screen is kinda crowded as is - and...i don't know if there's even anything else they could add characters to. Maybe if we get another new Mario multiplayer game announced in the direct we may or may not get.

A tie in game isn't going to happen. And if we get a new big Mario game it won't be announced before the usual summer window for a big general Direct.

@Dom_31 I could see them doing it for Mario Kart Tour like how a few Sonic movie characters are in Sonic Forces mobile.

If there is a direct this week, hopefully it is on Tuesday or Thursday. I don’t have school either day so I can just take the day off.

@Grumblevolcano Which date you think we will likely have a Nintendo Direct for this month?