Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

So the lineup is:

• July 18th - Nintendo World Championships NES Edition
• August 29th - Emio
• September 26th - Echoes of Wisdom
• October 17th - Super Mario Party Jamboree
• November 7th - Mario & Luigi Brothership

Emio turning out to be a new Famicom Detective Club game was quite the surprise, hopefully that and the 2021 remakes get physical versions (Nintendo did do that Bayonetta 1 physical version years after digital Switch release to coincide with Bayonetta 3).

I think it's very likely there's another November release yet to announce. Like I've predicted before I feel Prime 2+3 seems most likely considering Prime 2's 20th anniversary and preparation for Prime 4. The outcome of Emio makes me think we could be seeing Mystery Dungeon (Mystery Dungeon got a remake in 2020 with being announced 2 months before launch, perhaps a new game follows).

As for the whole Animal Crossing vs. Splatoon discussion, I think if Splatoon 4 was far away they'd continue supporting Splatoon 3 (at least in the sense of stuff like Splatfests and Big Run). So considering Splatoon 3's seemingly on its way out given the "Thank you for playing" message, I think if they had to choose one over the other they'd be picking Splatoon 4 over new Animal Crossing.

@Grumblevolcano I think Splatoon 4 makes sense to be before new Animal Crossing because we got Splatoon on Switch a few years before we got Animal Crossing. I don’t think it’ll be too long of a wait, but I think 2028 could be the right time for Animal Crossing (assuming Splatoon 4 is 2025 or 2026)

@Grumblevolcano Emio's physical release is already announced for the west! No sign of the originals getting a western physical release though.

@PikminMarioKirby Still confused as to why people think there's any correlation between those two series release dates moving forward. I've seen no evidence that AC!Switch2 wasn't in development alongside Splatoon 3.

More than likely, it was! Animal Crossing is a huge franchise that takes a lot of work. A lot of planning on the game’s direction has to be done. The games themselves (as of recent) have been very large in amount of content and customization. Animal Crossing seems to take a long time to develop. Splatoon is a franchise that seems to reuse many of it’s assets game-to-game, and it’s campaign isn’t a huge thing, and a lot of the major additions are well after release. Splatoon games are pretty massive as well, but likely take a lot less time since they already have a lot of what they need for the next game. If I remember correctly we got two Splatoon games between New Leaf and New Horizons, so I don’t see why that can’t be the same for between New Horizons and the next Animal Crossing game.

@PikminMarioKirby
I will be so happy to see either Amiibo Festival Deluxe or ACNL Remaster with ACNH rules (No villagers moving out by themself) on Nintendo Switch or the next Switch.

Considering NWC is releasing tomorrow, I figured it didn't make much sense starting a new game so I went back to Mario Party Superstars over the past few days. I was happy to find out that it was still really easy to find online matches for the board mode. I really hope Super Mario Party Jamboree continues to expand online options.

@link3710 Good to see physical confirmed for the new game.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah I’m really excited for playing Mario Party online as I haven’t really tried it yet. The 20-player online mode looks promising!

I wonder if there will ever be a Switch Mini, a home console only version of the original Switch. It could be tiny, sold for around 150 with a Pro controller and would surely do pretty well. I have had my Switch since 2017 and it's not looking in the best shape. I rarely ever play handheld and haven't used it this way for a few years. Yet it's all warped and will surely pack in one day. I don't want to buy another console, especially with the new one on the way. If all my digital library carries over, then great... If not, a Switch Mini would be ideal.

@OorWullie
Switch Mini will be very painful to play the games with very small text size on handheld mode like Lost Sphear for example.
Then we need magnifying glass everytime playing Switch Mini. 🤭

@Anti-Matter The Switch Mini would be for playing on TV only. Just a little box that can take game cards and connect online.

I mean, potentially, but in the short term the fact that Switch 2 will almost certainly be close to 100% back-compatible takes away the need.

I'm in a similar state as you where my 2017 Switch is showing it's age; I do hope it lasts well until Switch 2 comes out.

@Grumblevolcano
Yea, Superstars is still alive and kicking. My daughter and I still play it, and I hop online for matches from time to time. The problem with online has always been people dropping out during the matches, and then you wind up playing against CPUs, which is dumb.

@rallydefault Although there are some AI things I hope Nintendo never uses, more seamless bot transitions to a bot player who acts similar to the player who dropped out (and generally more similar to a human) would be nice for games like that.

Personally, I would appreciate a Switch variant that could just be plugged into a wall power socket and wasn't partially reliant on a battery. The same sphere yet polar opposite of the Lite.

@FishyS
The Superstars bots are... yea... usually not great lol

I play with them on easy when I'm playing with my daughter, and the results are wildly different. In some minigames, the bots will literally just walk off the edge of the platforms immediately, while in some others they will be extremely lucky in guessing or in getting points for the tracing games and stuff. And that's just on the easy setting lol

I think AI application like you're saying in this sense would be a good thing, yea.

@FishyS Machine Learning would be perfect for better CPUs tbh, that's actually a really good legitimate use case for them.

Not really sure where to put this considering it could be interpreted in different ways but I was rewatching Sonic X Shadow Generations trailers and only just noticed that the 3 days early access for the Digital Deluxe version is for all platforms except Switch. Don't remember past SEGA games which came to Switch and had Digital Deluxe versions doing this.

@Grumblevolcano That seems like a stupid idea to screw over the biggest Sonic player base.

Everyone keeps talking about a New Leaf port, but no one mentions the 3DS games that need a port most- the 3DS Fire Emblem games. They all had tons of dlc, including story content and new playable characters, all of which are unavailable now. Fates especially needs it because the entire third game of the bunch was only available as a digital download for one of the other two games. It's been wiped out of existence unless you already have it downloaded on your 3ds. Those games really need to make it to switch.

@Sigran102 I'd say looking at per franchise works better than per system. With Fire Emblem there's still 4 games exclusive to Japan (Mystery of the Emblem, Genealogy of the Holy War, Thracia 776, Binding Blade) and the Tellius games (Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn) are extremely expensive.