Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@Grumblevolcano There was a bit of speculation regarding it, but Sega also put out a regular Olympics 2020 game to begin with, so there's not much need for them to cut Mario out of the series. Plus, there was the mobile game that only starred Sonic, as @GalaxicGlobe mentioned.

On the one hand I kind of want a partner direct... on the other hand it would be amusing if there was no direct just so every single leaker was wrong.

Welp, partner showcase shadowdrop tomorrow at 9AM CST then

@FishyS If there is no direct will this be the first time Pyoro is wrong?

To be fair, Pyoro didn't actually say anything except implying that there wouldn't be a first party direct this week. At this point that will likely be correct no matter what happens tomorrow.

@chiiizu He didn’t say there was a Direct coming. Just that there wasn’t any first party games they were aware of being announced.

@FishyS @FragRed Ohh ok sorry all the rumors are getting muddled

Man, so nothing huh? That's unfortunate.

Tomorrow is probably a shadow drop. If not, then Pokemon is basically it for this month.

Hmm, now even Sony's doubling down on multiplatform (the only specifics at the moment being more aggressive PC strategy than they already have been doing). What if the Partner Showcase starts with Xbox and ends with Playstation? So like starts with the rumoured Hi-Fi Rush + Pentiment + Sea of Thieves and ends with something like Sackboy A Big Adventure.

I've been down the direct hype road enough times to know that hoping for or expecting a shadow dropped direct is just cope. It's just pokemon day this month. It's time for the switch 2 doubters to accept that Nintendo is done with switch exclusives, and everything from now on is multiplatform or switch 2 exclusive. The reveal of the next system is definitely close, and they're probably not announcing any more games until then.

At this point, I'd be surprised if we get a direct at all.

It could still be before or after the Microsoft thing. One way or another we are a little low on third party releases for the many months before Switch 2 actually comes out.

A quick check on Metacritic shows over 300 games at least tentatively scheduled for the year ahead. As ever, a lot of them look rather shovelware-ish, but there are still plenty of games that could use a Nintendo plug.

Alongside the first party games that we know are coming but still don't have firm dates, there's surely going to have to be a Direct at some point.

@Matt_Barber the games we know about can easily have release dates announced in a tweet, especially with all these trailers getting dropped for Peach, Mario vs DK, and Splatoon. Nintendo has no responsibility to show trailers for third party games. Partner directs only happened in 2022, probably just because they had nothing else to show. This time, they're not in a dry spell, they're just waiting for the hardware to be announced. I wouldn't expect anything beyond pokemon day until the switch 2 reveal.

I don't think we're necessarily looking at a partner direct. Even if Nintendo have no new games to announce, they've still got upcoming games for which very little has been shown, and a release roadmap that falls off a cliff in April, while the Switch 2 (or whatever it is called) isn't coming until at least October.

It just makes sense to map out the intervening six month period via the form of a Direct, and preferably prior to the Switch 2 reveal if they want people to pay much attention to what is in it.

@Matt_Barber What I'm thinking is that they'll probably just announce dates for TTYD and Luigi's Mansion 2 HD on their own, and then to pad out every month until, say, July, the likely Partner Showcase will have Mario and Sonic at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games announced for one month, while the Pokemon Presents bound to be coming at the end of the month will announce a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game - possibly a remake of the Explorers games, though I think a new one isn't impossible - to round things out. Maybe April for TTYD, May for PMD, June for Mario and Sonic, and July for Luigi's Mansion 2 HD?

Also, this is the 15,000th reply to this topic and I just think that's neat

@PikaPhantom Ehh, I can see Gamefreak doing something Unova related. Especially given how hellbent they are on never skipping a release year.

I know I got flak for saying this last week when nothing happened, but once again, I hope we learned our lesson here. I did. It's easy to get swept up in stuff on the internet and believe almost anything.

Wait about 12 more hours and if nothing happens your 'told you so' is justified. 😝 At the moment we still aren't sure since partner showcases aren't always announced ahead of time. If nothing happens today, I think everyone can be confident in saying we have no idea. 😆