Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@SlamDunk22 I do feel like that February would be a good time for one. I would maybe expect a February Direct or a Switch 2 announcement around that time. I think that by February, a lot of the Switch games announced back in June will have already been released, so I do feel like that time would be good for either a new console reveal or some new Switch game reveals.

@gcunit I totally agree 2024 and 2016 are not the same (especially financially for Nintendo), I just don't think dismissing/ignoring the similarities made for a particularly convincing argument in the video.

As for the election... at ground zero it feels more similar to the 2016 election than one might think even if that isn't the picture people have internationally. Regardless, I don't think anyone expects Nintendo to immediately go on a full non-stop advertising campaign starting this week, so the fact that there will be some other things in the news soon doesn't feel like an enormous issue.

It was interesting hearing their semi-insider perspectives on holiday sales after that same argument has been memed to death back and forth on famiboards by people who mainly don't have much information.

Overall I will be much more inclined to believe they know what they're talking about if we don't get the announcement this week. 😆 At the moment I put them in the same category as Pyoro who implied we are about to get the announcement — both groups used to have a source of accurate information but don't anymore and I need some evidence to make me put much stock in their current opinions.

This. This is the crux of the issue with K&K not saying anything about the similarities between the two years. It has nothing to do with thinking that they're wrong and this actually is a good time. It's that not acknowledging that Nintendo actually decided on this time of year in 2016 pokes a huge hole in their argument and credibility. Again, they come off like they've completely forgotten how the Switch reveal played out and that's not a good look for industry insiders who've worked at Nintendo, especially ones who worked there during the Switch's reveal.

To clarify my views on this as one of our resident optimists. The only reason I feel a Direct this year is likely is because we know they have already started manufacturing. And to me it seems unlikely that they would start manufacturing in August 2024 for a release in something like September 2025

Manufacturing having started suggests to me that the release is sometimes before the end of May. More probably April, possibly March. And if it's releasing in that timeframe I can't see how an announcement in January or February would work unless they're really pushing it to the limit. And certainly March is just crazy. Which leaves us with an announcement this year

My belief in an announcement this year is not based on rumours or what some YouTuber said or Direct patterns. It's simply a question of how long seems reasonable to warehouse millions of finished consoles that you're not selling

@skywake Are you basing that on a conventional manufacturing cycle? Because Nintendo have said they want to alieviate scalpers as much as possible (they are transparent.) That could mean a longer production run before launch. And what with the currency fluctuations, it could be that they were being ahead of the curve. Still any announcement this week is just going to get lost in all the media coverage of the election. It's fine for the 10% of folk who follow gaming sites etc, but their audience is everyone. And everyone isn't paying attention at the moment.

It's the release schedule that still has me thinking an announcement this year is fairly likely. It'd be weird to go into next year with virtually no upcoming first party Switch games if the new console isn't launching in the first half of the year. Think we should hear about one or the other sooner rather than later.

@GrailUK
Lets be real, we're all guessing here. My thoughts RE the timeline on manufacturing is simply that the firing gun has been shot. And it was shot two months ago. From what I've looked up of other major hardware launches the lead-in for this kind of thing is around 8 months. That puts us in April. We also know from other hardware launches that usually the gap between announcement and launch is about 6 months. 6 months before April? That's now

Now as you said, they could elongate the manufacturing stage to have more stock at launch. And they've said as much. But I would suspect a longer lead in would be a month or two. Note that at this scale a month is millions of units. That's a lot of additional stock for launch. So I can't see a longer lead in being 3, 5, 6 months or something. It'll be one or two months. To my uneducated mind in this space? Maybe that pushes us into June. And I guess if it was June that could work with a mid-January announcement. But anything on this side of that.... it really feels like it needs to be this year

Of course I could easily be wrong it's just it seems that an announcement, well, pretty much now for a release around April makes the most sense with the evidence we have

In terms of the election coverage stuffs, as I said in my earlier post it's just a question of media coverage. And this week the US elections are probably the least interesting they're going to be for a while. This week is the quiet before the storm. Next week at the very least there'll be all eyes on the US for the count. If we get something like a 2000 result then that'll drag on for months. If we get another 2020 then, well, the Orange baby is going to be stealing all the attention I suspect. And if that happens January is the month they're going to struggle to get coverage

@skywake I've written January off already. Poor month for announcements as folk are skint and on a come down from Christmas haha.

@GrailUK
It's kinda the thing though isn't it. There are only 5 months left and it has to be one of them. December is a dead end, January is similar, March feels too late, November and February don't make sense because they'll be immediately after investor meetings and it makes more sense to do these announcements before.....

Every month has a reason why it's not that month, but it has to be one of them

My own 2 cents - I think they will wait until early new year to announce the successor.

There is still a huge contingent of 'gaming casuals' who may be in the market for a Switch1, and will likely not even have awareness of a potential successor - let alone an impending announcement. The formal announcement will then cause ripples in mainstream news, and land in the laps of those previously unaware... potentially impacting Christmas sales I suppose?

@skywake I think the teaser announcement of the reveal will be the one last thing in the Feb Direct. Way the internet plays out is, the Direct tweet will not have a 'Switch 2 will not be discussed.' Nintendo Prime will make 27 videos about how it will be the main focus of the Direct and regurgitate aything he reads on forums and Twitter. But we'll get the event date right at the end...for sometime in March. And there will be drama that we didn't get more lol. Aaand so the hype machine ramps up.

(And I say this purely in the vain hope that it is sooner lol!)

Today's announcement is XCX for Switch:

Forget the switch 2, finally we got the definitive edition!!!

@Grumblevolcano Aw that’s genuinely lame. Hopefully no resources were taken from Xenoblade 4, since X isn’t great :/

@Grumblevolcano What a weird thing to drop a trailer out of nowhere. No complaining tho, that game should've been ported like 5 years ago. It didn't deserve to be stuck on Wii U.
I guess today is no Switch 2 announcement day tho.

There goes the Switch 2 announcement, honestly probably one of the least hype things they could announce right now (for me at least). Why couldn't this have been in a September Direct?

Better news than a direct for me. Pretty much nail in the coffin for a Nintendo Direct announcing anymore games for the OG Switch this year.

SamusHunter, an infamous 'leaker', has returned this year and claimed that Emio was a Famicom Detective Club game and was right. Recently SamusHunter made another claim, which was considered an Xenoblade X hint, and that just came true.

Based off of the fact that both of these were on eShop/Nintendo websites right after their full announcements, this could be similar to how Pyoro got his hints. Pyoro supposedly agreed with the Famicom thing after he went in hiding (although I think the post is gone now).

I’m still not trusting these leaks, although they are certainly weird timing.

Can't wait for this - one of my fave games ever.

So are we going to have people saying we need to wait until the end of March before Nintendo reveals the Switch 2 so not to overshadow Xenoblade Chronicles X? I was assuming it’ll be next year anyway but I didn’t think there’d be anything in March.