Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@FishyS Nintendo’s whole H2 and next year’s H1 dramatically affected by Alarmo release

The difference between these 2 meetings are that the previous one was in May, which had a Direct the month after. The Direct was even announced at the meeting, along with the Switch Successor announcement announcement. That doesn’t seem like the case with this meeting at all, and if we were getting a Direct it likely would’ve happened in September.

Fwiw, Kit & Krysta, who claim to have worked on the Switch launch strategy, dont see this week as the optimal time to reveal a new console, primarily due to proximity to Christmas shopping season and the US election (also bear in mind the election they've just had in Japan too). K&K reckon quarterly investor meetings are not a consideration at Nintendo for something as major as a new console launch. They don't rule out announcement this week, but they're both in Team 2025:

@Bolt_Strike They stated when it was announced that Yooka Laylee's sequel is and has been in active development, and hinted that a lot of the work on this came from that game. It's not like they're doing this instead. Not sure if it's needed either lol, but it's not an either-or.

@gcunit Interesting and they may be correct, but it's a little hard to take them too seriously.

The 'they don't care about investors meetings' thing would hold more water if Nintendo didn't clearly announce Switch 2 info directly in response to an investor meeting earlier this year.

And saying 'they only look at the long term not these short term things', but then immediately saying 'short term holiday profits oh no!' sounded a whee bit contradictory.

And most of their comments applied to 2016 also — e.g. 'right before financial meeting' + 'right before extremely contentious US election' + 'right before holiday season'.

Again, they could easily be correct but their actual arguments in that video did not feel well made.

@gcunit The Christmas season and the US elections were both pretty big things in 2016, but that didn't stop an October 20th announcement. I don't really see the difference between the 2016 reveal and the potential reveal this week.

edit: I said almost the same thing as @FishyS but I didn't do it nearly as good XD

I don’t believe Kit and Krysta. While they could be accurate, and hold more information than I on the company’s internals- they’re no longer employees at the company. There’s a heavy chance Nintendo is different now from the version of the company they once worked for.

More games for NSO Expansion Pack available now.

@gcunit Yeah, not a very insightful take from Kit & Krysta there. Everyone knows about the kinds of factors they put forth there, it's conventional wisdom. What's confusing the fanbase is that Nintendo broke those rules for the Switch and revealed it this time in 2016, why did they decide it was okay then and not now? Kit & Krysta don't address that at all and don't really reveal anything that wasn't just Marketing 101. Not really telling us anything new here.

And again, we shouldn't treat the two as if they're the authority on what will or won't happen. They no longer work for the company, so all they have are guesses based off their own experiences. They were fired in 2021. It's 2024 now. Three years is a lot of time for a company to change, and on top of that Nintendo has broken those "rules" of marketing before back in 2016.

@Grumblevolcano has Nintendo ever had a shadowdrop for NSO this early in the week? We literally just got Banjo Tooie a few days ago! If we don't hear anything within the next 24 hours, a new console reveal will start seeming a lot less likely for this year.

@PikminMarioKirby The trailer makes it seem like these 2 games were picked specifically because of Halloween. As for why now and not wait for the day itself? Well perhaps there's a NES/SNES/GB/GBC batch incoming in a few days, GB/GBC for example hasn't seen any games since early June.

@VoidofLight They're not the authority on what will or won't happen, but insight from what Nintendo did 3 years ago can still be valuable information. Even having been out of Nintendo for 3 years, just being there at some point gives them more insight than most of us who've never worked there in our lives. That's still worth something. It's just not something you can take as law because of what may have changed since 2021.

But again, in this case the issue is less about what's changed since 2021. It's that what they said here actually contradicts with what ended up happening in 2016 and they don't speak to that at all. It's as if they completely forgot what happened with the Switch reveal and think that October reveals are some taboo that never happened. Except oops, it did in 2016. I think that's what's confusing the fanbase, what factors were different in 2016 that would lead Nintendo to decide it was okay then but not okay now. I'm not sure if Kit & Krysta get that, it feels like they missed the mark on what fans are interested in hearing about how Nintendo operates and they just spouted generic marketing decision making. And that doesn't tell us much.

@PikminMarioKirby @FishyS Well, you're not wrong about 2016, but the devil is perhaps in the detail - i.e. we're one week closer to Nov. 4th than we were in 2016, and K&K were talking about from today specifically, rather than 'October' generally. And Wii U and 3DS sales weren't as strong as Switch's.

@Bolt_Strike Yeah, I don't mean to say they know nothing at all, since they know more than we do about Nintendo- but at the same time things can still change a good bit in three years, and like you said- it seems like they pretty much forgot about how the Switch reveal was in the last weeks of October in an election year that was just as divisive as this one.

@Grumblevolcano We've gotten F-Zero games, Banjo-Tooie, NSO Playtest, and now these games, so another NSO drop this month doesn't seem very likely in my opinion. It is very possible Nintendo is moving this out of the way for something, or Nintendo could just be doing this for no reason XD

@gcunit It is true that we are closer to November than we were last year. Some people have theorized that Switch 1 was revealed about a week before the investor meeting, and around now is about a week before the investor meeting this year, so there could be reason for that to line up.

Holiday 2016 had a mainline Pokemon (Sun & Moon), and it's the 3rd best selling game on the 3DS despite releasing the month after the Switch reveal. Personally I don't think Nintendo's too scared about a new console reveal significantly impacting holiday sales, but I could be completely wrong about that.

Have to lol at the dismissive attitude towards the vid. People be taking K&K sharing some Nintendo perspective a smidge too seriously, sniffing their copium to spot the similarities between 2016 and 2024 but not the differences or the fact they're not saying a reveal on 29th isnt going to happen.

(a) Kit said at least three times in that video "We're not saying this [reveal on 29th Oct.] isn't going to happen" - they just felt it was worth sharing their experience of the Nintendo perspective.

(b) Two points raised repeatedly in this thread - investor meeting and Christmas sales - were covered, giving genuine insight. Just felt worth highlighting in this thread. Wii U hadn't had a Direct since March 2016; Switch had one in late August. Switch has an install base pretty much twice what 3DS and Wii U had.

(c) Granted, I'm not American and don't follow American affairs particularly closely, but I find the '2016 election was just as divisive' take a little broad-brushed. Since 2016, amongst other things, we've had "They stole the election!", Jan 6th, and two supposed assassination efforts on one of the candidates, who now happens to be a convicted felon who's spent much of the last year dodging further indictments. If you think 2016 and 2024 are comparable then... good luck out there. Kit just said each day closer to the election makes competing announcements less likely to be seen as optimal timing.

@gcunit
The US elections point I find amusing. Because surely given how things played out last time if you were wanting to avoid competing with coverage of the US elections now is a great time

Not to get too political but last time around mid January, not late November, was the time when the US elections dominated the news cycle. And I think it's fair to assume Mr Orange is likely to attempt the same thing this time if things don't go his way. November is not the month to be worried about if your intent is to get some media coverage

Also last I checked the US elections were not this week so I don't see how that impacts an announcement this week anyways. This week is dead air, nothing is really happening in that space. So if you want to get some media space between now and March not dominated by US election coverage surely you either go right now or wait until at least mid February

@PikminMarioKirby For me, I don’t really expect a Direct announcement for the final few days of October, or a Switch 2 announcement, a lot of people have been confident in an announcement for October. I’ve always thought a possible Switch 2 reveal wouldn’t be until maybe early next year (January/February, though I think a Switch 2 announcement in February would clash with a possible Direct) but it’s super hard for me to predict a date.

I also think why some people thought that a Switch 2 announcement would be in October probably has to do with how Nintendo, surprisingly, didn’t have a Direct in September like they usually do, and I do understand why people believe that October would have some big news of some sort. I also do agree that this could maybe be the last chance of any big Nintendo news for this year, given Nintendo doesn’t really have any showcases or presentations in November and December, but since they didn’t have a Direct in September, maybe there could be a change of plans, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they held off of showing or announcing anything until next year, or mentioned the successor a bit in an upcoming fiscal meeting.

I think that meeting maybe could mention the successor, but not a whole lot of details on it. I do wonder if something will get shown off tomorrow or on Wednesday, but I would not be surprised if there wasn’t a Switch 2 announcement this week or for the rest of the year. For some reason, I also feel like that the recent drop of N64 NSO games this week kind of makes me think a reveal isn’t likely, cuz I don’t think Nintendo is the type to reveal a lot of stuff at once, but now that I think about it, I don’t think NSO games have a big relation to the Switch 2.

@Pastellioli I think a february direct WOULD be the switch 2 announcement