Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Yeah I don't agree with this. Besides OoT, really all of the 3D adventure games feel about as modern as GC and Wii games. Games like Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie, DK 64, Conker's Bad Fur Day, those don't really feel all that simplistic. Mario Kart 64 was a massive jump in map design because of the 3D graphics, but Double Dash doesn't really feel like a huge leap, it just adds the double racer gimmick (Wii does, but the series of Wii -> 7 -> 8 was kind of a ramp up in mechanics for MK). Then you have some 2D platformers like Kirby 64 and Yoshi's Story, which are a bit simplistic but they're not much more simplistic than 2D platformers that we've seen on more modern consoles like Wii and Wii U. As for Pikmin, that is a new IP for the GC but aside from the mass number of characters there's no real added complexity there. So again, IDK what you're talking about with the jump from N64 -> GC being a jump in "complexity". It was almost nothing aside from a jump in graphics.

But... N64 games ARE Late 90s game. Remember the N64 was from 1996 to 2002, the N64 WAS late 90s and the argument here is about the distinction between Late 90s and early 00s. Void is saying that there is a significant distinction, I'm saying that there isn't. I would say the ramp up really occurred from the NES -> SNES -> N64. That period the industry went from simplistic 2D arcade games to large, open 3D titles. And since those two console transitions occurred in the 90s that fits your timeline.

@rallydefault Sorry for distracting you from your chicken dinner! Totally get where you are coming from. But selling physical and individual copies of games is firmly in Nintendo's DNA. And if they are going to be adding DS, Turbografx (for example) beforehand, they might as well have their cake and eat it and remaster . remake until they are ready for GC. They can only do so much bless em. If NSO was any cheaper it would be free lol. They may as well put games there when they have exhausted their main business model. I'm not saying GC games aren't coming, but I'm not going to pretend that it's worth talking about yet, because it's years away and I'm not a Youtuber who needs to chat crap for an excuse to make a video lol. And I certainly don't want to sound like I think they put games there to die. Nintendo NES Championship prooves they can think of new ways to play with old games. Granted, without narrative or plot, but gameplay is in Nintendo's DNA too.

@Bolt_Strike
I think you're being a bit pedantic about the timeline in my post. I was talking about the kinds of games we were seeing in the early to mid 90s (i.e. SNES/MegaDrive) vs the ones we were seeing by the late 90s and early 00s (i.e. Dreamcast, PS2, GC, XB). The fact that the N64 was late to enter and leave is a bit of a pedant's side-note to the broader point I was making

That ten year period was insane in terms of technological advances. And I don't care how dogmatic you want to be with that "anti-graphics" bit you always want to push, you can't convince me that the jump from OoT to Wind Waker or Goldeneye to Halo or even Super Smash Bros to Melee wasn't significant. Or the change from GTA2 to GTA3. Things were moving fast over that entire decade in a way that they just haven't since

So I can understand how some people feel like GC is "too modern" for NSO in some respect. Because in a lot of ways the GC kinda marks the point where the rapid acceleration of tech caught up with the ambitions of developers. And since then it's been very slow and incremental in comparison

edit: I guess it's mostly because we shifted from the era dominated by hardware limitations into one dominated by development resource limitations. The kinda of games we saw in the GC era can still exist today, just with more pixels. N64/PS2 style games these days only really exist as a deliberate aesthetic

There's a reason why "looks like a PS2 game" is an ongoing meme. It's because, to some degree, PS2 is when we "stopped"

@skywake Nintendo at the time liked to think the Gamecube was a 3D SNES.

@GrailUK
It's ok. It was honestly the best chicken I've ever cooked at home, though lol (well... ok, I'll come clean. My wife cooked it.)

Yea, for sure, Nintendo is still going to sell mostly stand-alone titles, which is why I'm sticking with them over Microsoft and Sony. I started gaming in the 80s with Nintendo, and I'm going to end gaming with them whenever they go out of business, which is hopefully not for a very, very long time.

And they will continue to do both, as @skywake and I were saying. Even though I think they're gonna put Gamecube stuff on NSO eventually, that's certainly not gonna stop them from still doing remasters and remakes of Gamecube games. We may get the Direct this week or next and find out Prime 2 is coming out. Lots of possibilities.

But they need to keep that NSO worth it, which is a combination of stuff, but the games available on it are probably a big draw for lots of those 40 million people. (I have a friend who has a gross number of hours in the NSO games.... like, hundreds and hundreds of hours.... which I can't relate to lol)

@Fishys
I do wonder that, as well. For my calculations, though, I think setting the number at about 20 dollars is fair because that accounts for possibly Expansion Pack members (which may be lower, as you said) AND the many, many family memberships (I bet there are a ton of those).

I just couldn't see them introducing the Expansion Pass 2, unless it's something like Switch Online's base roster of software libraries ends up getting expanded to include the two others.

Its been June for over a week now...

Or to put it another way, there’s still 3 weeks of June left.

Well i think they were fibbing. They said June, it is June.

That has far more to do with the jump from 4th to 5th gen and the dawn of 3D than anything else. The jump from 4th to 5th gen was far larger than from 5th to 6th.

Graphics wise, yes, the difference was far more noticeable because 5th gen graphics were very low poly and angular so the graphics were quite primitive in that respect. But gameplay is king when it comes to technological advancements in video games and what was the difference between 5th and 6th gen and those games gameplay wise? Because I see little to nothing in that regard.

Again, gameplay is king here, so if you can't point to a gameplay advancement this argument of "GC is too new/modern" gets kind of silly. You're going to draw the line based on GC games not looking super angular rather than something more concrete that would have a much more tangible effect on the complexity like 3D level design or online? If you wanted to draw the line at N64 or Wii on that basis I'd understand that a little better, but GC did not feel like an earth shattering technological jump. It felt a bit more like a refinement of the N64 rather than a revolution in its own right. It just feels like such an arbitrary line to draw in terms of "this is where games start getting too complex for NSO".

Ehh, I don't really think so (also you need to reverse that argument, not that GC games could exist today with more pixels, but that games today could've existed on the GC with less pixels). GC is certainly closer than some other generations like the NES, SNES, GB, and GBA, but there are some key advancements since the GC that couldn't quite be done. Mainly having to do with content and gameplay modes. The biggest one is really online, any kind of multiplayer game was limited to local multiplayer and typically had a limited number of competitive multiplayer game modes whereas now we see more online game modes and they've been dabbling in co-op modes too. But also the size of the game worlds and the amount of content in the games have increased, you wouldn't have been able to put a game like BotW or Mario Odyssey on the GC, comparable adventure games on the GC were MUCH smaller.

I'm not even sure I buy that in terms of graphics, the HD era feels like a fairly significant graphics bump too.

A trailer for an among us update was released on accident, it was scheduled for the 18th and said out now that makes me believe next direct is likely on the 18th

There's a "rumor" that Xenoblade X is going to get an announcement tomorrow for Switch. No way that's happening, seeing as Nintendo wouldn't just shadow-drop a direct like this... especially on a Tuesday.

@VoidofLight Some directs do get announced day-of, although day before is most common. And Tuesdays used to be Nintendo E3 day. So it's not 100% crazy but ... yeah, seems extremely unlikely. Plus we usually get more reliable leaks and rumours before a direct.

@FishyS That, and the fact that the rumor-monger's claim to fame was a safe bet. They claimed Metal Gear Solid would appear at the Xbox showcase on Sunday, but that was a given for the most part.

@FishyS When did same-day Direct happen? Was it a general or a side direct?

@VoidofLight Pyoro said there's nothing happening tomorrow. I wouldn't expect anything until he begins to leak more information, as that always means there's an announcement within the week or so. Innersloth accidentally uploading an update release trailer reportedly planned for the 18th after using Summer Games Fest to announce their indie funding/publishing label, though, after the last Direct gave them the penultimate announcement slot, is probably a good sign of that being the date, though.

@Novamii Yeah I doubt we'd get X on Switch. The console is barely more powerful than the Wii U, and the Wii U struggled to run the game. All to the point where you had to download several free DLCs from the eshop in order to actually play the game with good loading times.

Monolith has voiced how hard it would be to get X on any console outside of the Wii U as well. Mostly due to how expensive the game would be to port- and how expansive the game is in the first place. It seems like they sort of moved away from X as a whole as well, given that Xenoblade 3 is reusing a ton of concepts that X either introduced or would have expanded upon.. including a two person mech that looks uncannily similar to Ouroboros.

As for Xenoblade's future.. I feel like they're probably just going to make a Xenoblade Chronicles 4. While the current saga is done with and Takahashi did say that he saw this as a stopping gap, there's still a good few mysteries that are left up in the air from 3. Things that he said he couldn't quite answer yet, but will later on down the road.

@PikaPhantom Also yeah, I don't think there's going to be anything tomorrow. I could see Nintendo still announcing a direct for this week- but who knows. Their general time slot for directs seems to be impacted in June due to Summer Games Fest and Nintendo not wishing to have any part in it. The Among Us trailer could just be something that was set to drop on the 18th on its own, but it could've also been part of a direct.

@PikaPhantom Yeah it seems somewhat likely the leak is related to the Direct, however I will wait until we hear more. My main issue is that Tuesdays aren’t that common besides when e3 was a thing (because Tuesday was Nintendo’s best day to do it with the little options they had), so I was thinking it’d be on Thursday, the 20th. However this is good evidence, considering how Among Us was in the September Direct.

I'm just about to start Xenoblade 3 for the first time, so please be careful of spoilers.