Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Leaking has really become a problem. Most of the time I don't really care, but I don't think Nintendo likes it at all. Emio actually was leaked by SamusHunter to be Famicom Detective Club. Not that I trust SamusHunter, but Pyoro said that that might actually be right.

I still see Pyoro as credible as for some reason he keeps on getting things right (including Switch 2 reveal and XCX trailer).

With the June 2024 Direct, Echoes of Wisdom, Mario Party, and M&L Brothership were all leaked (which were the biggest new reveals), but not all of it was Pyoro. I still think the reason Nintendo didn't put the Direct games on the eShop right away was to get Pyoro to not leak it. I don't think they'll have to worry about this in the near future, but I also don't think Pyoro is done leaking things.

The Switch 2 leaks were pretty bad, but that was pretty much Nintendo's decision. An September/October reveal would've worked a lot better, especially if they started mass production at that point. It didn't feel like Nintendo was trying to take down the leaks either, probably because people would take that as confirmation it was real.

@FreasurePlanten
It's a speculation thread, let people speculate. I would note that a post just a few up from yours dropped a rather insane and, frankly, far less credible idea. That the top USB port could be used as an attachment for an OG Switch to enable DS on NSO. No response at all

And yet somehow we feel the need to trash the idea that maybe Splatfests and Directs align. Which, frankly, seems like it could well be a thing given both are regular events and a Direct is the kind of place where you would want to talk about an event like that

Saying there's no use looking at patterns here is somewhat but not entirely valid. Because there are definitely some patterns. Like how they usually announce things immediately before investor meetings or how they generally try to avoid long gaps between events. Or how they try to avoid talking over other industry events so they can get some clear air in the news cycle

I don't think that level of ridicule was warranted

@skywake I mean, of course. Speculating is what this thread is about. But the post you're referring to just drops an idea that the person had. I think that's exactly the kind of post that is most fun to have around here, even if I also think it's really implausible. I do, however, think you're fooling yourselves by thinking that some (not all) of these regularities are evidence whatsoever. That's the part of it that I think contributes to speculation here and other places going awry. It's the rationalization of wishful thinking in some cases.

Nowhere did I say, contra what you're suggesting, that no regularity means anything or there's no use looking at patterns. Of course some of them do mean something. Otherwise we couldn't predict anything about anything. But in some of the cases you mentioned you can find a rationale that explains a causal connection: Nintendo doesn't want to get overshadowed by international or industry events; they have to satisfy their investors; they organize their fiscal year by quarters, etc. In the case of splatfests, while you say that "a Direct is the kind of place where you would want to talk about an event like that", I'm pretty sure that they have seldom talked about Splatfests in general Directs. The only thing I can imagine we could say is that Nintendo probably wouldn't have a Splatfest on the same day as a Direct, but that's hardly a point worth making because Splatfests are on weekends. And Nintendo announced the Switch 2 when DKC Returns HD launched, so that also doesn't mean much, as they've clearly now shifted focus to the next Splatoon. I also find it suspicious that the pattern is only presented for the last couple of years. Presumably it doesn't hold up for Splatoon 2, otherwise they would have added it as data points. It's a kind of cherry picking that can raise people's hopes when it's not real evidence.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised to see something before April. But this is based on wishful thinking and gut feeling. This is also a very unusual circumstance where Nintendo has announced a Direct far in advance. A regularity that would be relevant would be to check if they have done this in the past and if when they have done this, they had at any point a presentation in between announcement and Direct. If not, assuming that they keep doing things that way it increases the likelihood that there is no presentation, just like we didn't get a general Direct in the Summer of... was it 2021?

Actually, I don't even think there is a regularity here. Splatfests were a monthly event. So the maximum amount of time you could be from a Splatfest would be 2 weeks (either in advance or afterwards). And the only data point presented for February is actually the one where the Nintendo Direct happened before the Splatfest haha

PS: Going by the data, if there would be a Big Run repeat, assuming they follow the original schedule of events as they were coming out (big if), then the most likely date is 14th to 16th of March, actually, not the week prior.

So in conclusion we have:

• Grumblevolcano observing that it is common from recent data for directs to be both one week and two weeks after splatfests. There is no particular direct date prediction there, just the observation that Splatfests don't seem to preclude a direct next week. There is an implicit conjecture that Splatfest scheduling and directs might be causally correlated for internal Nintendo scheduling reasons, but the conclusion is independent of this conjecture.
• FreasurePlanten is making the explicit conjecture that Splatfest and Direct scheduling are independent. This is harder to prove, but is a not totally unreasonable conjecture.

So both parties are in agreement that Splatfest data does not preclude a direct next week.

We don't have many other looks onto the Nintendo Calendar but the first party release schedule certainly doesn't preclude a direct either since it is empty right now.

So basically we have extremely little information other than the broken-last-year existence of February direct pattern. And the lack of many upcoming games with release dates.

State of Play got announced for tomorrow at 2pm pacific/5pm eastern/10pm UK time.

https://blog.playstation.com/2025/02/11/state-of-play-returns...

@Grumblevolcano Is there anything else relevant which happens around February? Or is the calendar clear until Pokemon Day?

@FishyS Depends on how the State of Play is handled, Sony could announce a State of Play in the State of Play like last year (January State of Play announced a February Rebirth State of Play). There isn't an equivalent to Rebirth at the moment (big PS5 exclusive nearby) but the State of Play could announce something like if Ghost of Yotei ended up getting an April release date, there could be a separate Ghost of Yotei State of Play nearby.

Nintendo's released the trailer for the DKC Returns HD Tetris 99 event.

I hope Sony reveals more info about the Nintendo Switch 2 in the next State of Play!

@VoidofLight legend of zelda movie on switch 2 confirmed

It's 3pm UK time and there's no announcement so it's not this week.

For some reason I don’t really expect them to do a February Direct in-between the wait for the April Switch 2 Direct. I don’t know, having two directs kind of in quick succession with each other sounds like something they wouldn’t ever do.

If they were, I’d expect maybe a Partner Direct or Direct Mini, kind of acting like an appetizer before the main course in April, and from what some others think, they are all expecting a smaller direct in February (if it happens). Plus, I think there are rumors that Planet Robobot will get a Switch port, and if that is true, I’d maybe expect an announcement prior to April, and maybe they’ll show it off in a hypothetical February Direct, but I think it’s too early to tell.

I initially expected them to do a February Direct before they announced the April Direct, but I don’t expect anything besides maybe a shadow-dropped game announcement for something.

@Dev-N Yeah, it might be like that, especially if we don't see anything next week. But hey, Nintendo is capable, and kinda eager, to do anything. I still feel like Metroid Prime 4 needs special attention, and I'm convinced that Prime 2&3 have to be coming in some way.... right, please?

I'll double-dip Prime 2 if it got the Remastered treatment, at least. Still need to play Prime 3 on Prime Trilogy on my Wii U.

Considering I think Switch 2 will release in September, a general Direct still feels likely as they'd need to fill up Spring/Summer somehow. There was also a 3DS Direct 1.5 months before the Switch reveal and despite the January Switch 2 reveal, we know much less about Switch 2 currently than we knew about Switch in October 2016.

Surely they can't be quiet all the way to April. Switch is the most popular console out there, they won't leave us hanging even while we wait for the successor. Surely...

@Novamii I agree Metroid Prime 2/3 and Robobot seem very likely to happen at some point this year, but I still think they’d be in a Direct over a social media drop.

Recent rumors are suggesting perhaps a Direct mini, and that seems like a good move to continue support for Switch a little bit more while not putting a huge focus on it.

I think we just got our Partner Showcase for Switch 1. Thanks Sony

Shinobi and Sonic Racing both look great, and looking forward to Onimusha 2.

That was the best non-Nintendo-sponsored Nintendo Partner Showcase, it's true.

@FishyS How's the weekly eshop listings looking?