Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@VoidofLight I don't know why, but my mind immediately went to the 10th Console Generation and not Pokemon...

I'm tired, yall.

Is Switch 2 the 10th console generation? console generations were always pretty made up but feel even more meaningless nowadays.

Although gen 10 pokemon on gen 10 console is kind of satisfying.

The way I see Nintendo console generations is this:
Gen 1: Game and Watch / Arcade (1981-1985)
Gen 2: Nintendo Entertainment System, and Game Boy at the tail end (1985-1990)
Gen 3: Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy (1990-1996)
Gen 4: Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color (1996-2001)
Gen 5: Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance, which eventually passes the torch over to the DS (2001-2006)
Gen 6: Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS, which passes the torch over to the Nintendo 3DS at the tail end (2006-2012)
Gen 7: Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3DS (2012-2017)
Gen 8: Nintendo Switch, with the Nintendo 3DS hanging around a bit longer (2017-2025)
Gen 9: Nintendo Switch 2, with the Nintendo Switch hanging around for who knows how much longer (2025-Present)

And PlayStation and XBox have fewer console gens because they came later.

@Nep-Nep-Freak Not being Nintendo-specific, history usually sticks NES in the third generation of consoles. Generation 2 had things like Atari 2600. And Nintendo had their first console around the same time -the Color TV Game console (Japan only). Generation 1 was e.g. early 70s before any consoles started using cartridges. Nintendo didn't make a console during that first generation but they did make a light gun accessory for the Magnavox Odyssey console so they were at least involved in that generation.

Microsoft only came into existence at the end of generation 1 and wasn't making consoles but created some software which was then used to make basic PC games. Sony wasn't making games in the 70s but they were making plenty of tvs which people played games on 🤔

@FishyS, for me, since new game consoles are constantly coming out from the big three in completely random years (although XBox and Playstation do seem to happen around the exact same time most of the time), I kind of just started making individual console generation lists for each company. I do know that other people do it differently, I just don't really pay much attention to that 😅.

@FishyS I'm not even sure we're at that point. I do know Nintendo's done a lot of dancing between the home console generations, especially lately. I consider it this:

Gen 1: Megavox Odyssey
Gen 2: Atari 2600, Intellivision, ColecoVision
Gen 3: NES/Famicom, Sega Master System, Atari 7800
Gen 4: SNES/Super-Famicom, Sega Genesis/Mega Drive
Gen 5: Nintendo 64, Saturn, PlayStation
Gen 6: GameCube, Genesis, PS2, Xbox
Gen 7: Wii, PS3, Xbox 360
Gen 8: Wii U, PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Gen 9: PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2

Granted, this doesn't include handhelds. Additionally, specific generations are starting to become a less important factor.

@ElRoberico I think the main question is whether to count Wii U and Switch as seperate generations. But also... it's all made up so it really doesn't matter 😆

@Bolt_Strike Gen 10 is definitely going to be one of those larger scale games. I don't think we'll see a new 3D mario or 3D Zelda anytime soon though. Definitely not a new Pikmin, and a new Animal Crossing is off the table given the 3.0 update for New Horizons. Luigi's Mansion 4 could happen, but realistically it depends on how busy Next Level Games has been. I know they helped to develop Prime 4.

@VoidofLight New Pokemon generations did not stop them from having other large scale games the same here. SwSh launched the same year as Luigi's Mansion 3 and SV launched the same year as Splatoon 3.

We are almost certainly getting 3D Mario relatively soon. The only thing that could derail that is development struggles. Nintendo always likes to have a new, original Mario, especially a new 3D Mario now, as an early system seller for their hardware. It's almost always there by the 2nd anniversary's of the hardware release (and usually by that 2nd holiday season), with the only exception being the GBA which weirdly didn't have a new main series Mario game at all (it instead relied on remakes of the NES/SNES games). If we don't at least have an announcement of a 3D Mario coming by June 5, 2027 (and even then that's still a bit odd, it really should be by Holiday 2026), then Mario's absence will be really conspicuous.

@VoidofLight @Bolt_Strike I kind of wonder with Next Level helping with Prime 4 if their next game will be a new Federation Force style game rather than Luigi's Mansion 4. Switch 2 has brought lots of surprises like 3D DK being picked over 3D Mario, Kirby spinoff being picked over Smash, the return of Virtual Boy, etc. so Federation Force being given another chance would feel right at home with Nintendo's other game choices for the console.

I do think Federation Force had potential but came at the wrong time for the wrong console, Switch 1 would've been a better fit for the 3DS game.

@Bolt_Strike I'm not saying that a new Pokemon generation is stopping them from releasing any other big titles. I'm just saying that Pokemon is one of the few big ones we know will be there next year. The reason why I said I can't see a new 3D mario or Zelda being revealed any time soon is less because of Pokemon itself, and more because of the timing. We just got Donkey Kong Bananza, and while key members of the Odyssey team were missing on the project- there's no telling if that really means we'll get a 3D Mario soon or not. I feel like if it were coming out next year, they would've revealed it in the Mario Anniversary portion of the direct instead of saving the new 2D Yoshi game for the final reveal of that portion. As for Zelda, we're probably not going to see a new 3D Zelda for another 5-6 years from now if both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom's waits were anything to really go by.

@Grumblevolcano I could see them doing another Federation Force style game- especially given how well Prime 4 is selling (even though most seem to think of Prime 4 as being among the weaker entries in Metroid). It would be a better time now due to us already having another Metroid Prime game and a 2D Metroid game under our belts.

The only other thing I can think of next year is potentially a new Xenoblade or Monolithsoft game- but even then those aren't really big system pushers. They're more akin to Fire Emblem, where people will definitely purchase the console for those games- but they don't really appeal to a casual audience.

They wouldn't have greenlit Bananza if it meant not getting a 3D Mario. Mario is the face of Nintendo, that's why they want it early. As for why they didn't show it in the Mario Anniversary Direct, they usually keep Mario announcements close to their chest and tend to only announce it a few months before release. Plus a Mario announcement would overshadow everything else so it would undercut the sales of other games like Galaxy 1+2 and Yoshi.

@Bolt_Strike I don't think we'll be getting a new 3D Mario for at least 2-3 years now. Since the majority of the EPD8 team were busy with Bananza, they'll probably be in like, the early stages of production for their next Mario project - too early to announce next year. Plus, it'd make zero sense from a business standpoint to suddenly announce a brand new 3D platformer so close to their last big 3D platformer - one that they clearly want to push as their major system seller in its early stages.

@N00BiSH Actually there's been an analysis of Bananza's credits and there's a lot of names missing. So it's extremely likely that Bananza is a splinter team that's been started sometime between Odyssey and Bowser's Fury. Bananza being built on mechanics from Odyssey also lends to the theory that this team was spun off fairly early, probably before Bowser's Fury was released. 3D Mario should not be in the early stages at this point, it likely would've started after Bowser's Fury and should be far into development.

Also one year after Bananza is not "close" and they've had no issue having big games in similar genres that close together. A few months away, sure, that might cause problems but they're not going to clear out 2 or 3 years of 3D platformers just for Bananza. They have too many major IPs that they need on the Switch 2 ASAP to spread out the major ones this thinly.

@Bolt_Strike Exactly, Koichi Hayashida is a big EPD 8 name who was missing from Bananza for example. There's no way concurrent development of that and the next 3D Mario hasn't been taking place.

Highly recommend this video for more information though it's worth noting this was made before the confirmation of Bananza's developers.

I also don't think there's as much overlap in fans of Mario and a game like Bananza as people think. And there's just no logical rationale to not work on both IP's, because Bananza is a sideshow compared to a new 3D Mario game.

@Nintoz Hayashida moved from EPD8 to join the 2D Mario team at EPD10 for Wonder. His absence was more than justified. Same can be said for the other names absent - just because they're not Bananza doesn't inherently suggest the existence of a new 3D Mario. They all could be working on other projects.

@OmnitronVariant there's nothing about Bananza that screams "sideshow." I feel like we're just saying anything.

They shuffle their EPD teams pretty much every time they have a new console so they could easily have more teams working on 3D games recently. Programmers who used to be junior on one team are now more senior and could take over a portion of a different game. People are weirdly obsessed with very specific game devs working on specific Nintendo games (like the idea there could never be a Smash without Sakurai) but both people and companies evolve and change and I'm sure Nintendo has generational planning to make sure plenty of experts are around to form new teams or take over old ones.

@N00BiSH I own and have played a fair bit of Bananza. It is absolutely a sideshow compared to Odyssey. It’s pretty obviously not comparable in quality of level design and gameplay. And that’s fine, but there really is no way it’s Nintendo’s replacement for a Mario game for years to come.

@OmnitronVariant I know this is subjective, but personally, I (and many I know) vastly preferred Bananza to Odyssey. I don't mean that we liked it more — I mean that if we had to erase one from existence, it would be Odyssey, and we'd have no hesitation. So I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as you claim.