Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@CaleBoi25 I don't think this rules out anything necessarily but it does make it a later rather than sooner situation. I'd imagine Nintendo will look at certain games, NS2 Editions etc. and how much information they need to reveal and when. In the case of Tomodachi Life, I thought the situation would be an announcement of a future Direct within the general February presentation but perhaps the timing of all this suggests it's coming not in May (which I and others had predicted) but in April.

@Nintoz
Imagine the surprise of Switch 2 version announcement revealed right after they say "Thank you for watching".

@CaleBoi25 I think it's Nintendo following the path they did post-2020 about when there's not much 1st party stuff to announce for the usual Direct window (February - July for February Direct, June - December for June Direct, September - March for September Direct), they do a Partner Showcase near then instead.

I dont see how they will have a 1st party direct in Feb now with another small direct announced.

I still think we get partner/indie in Feb then a MAR10 (Yoshi, maybe 3d mario, anything else mario) presentation.

At least April (post-movie) is still my prediction for first party big direct.

Nate the Hate's chirped up and claims a Direct will occur on the first week of February. I wonder he (and others who corroborate with him) will stick their guns after Tomodachi Life's announcement.

Lets wait and see. I still think it will be general one

Yea, I don’t get why this “rules out” a general Direct? To me this actually makes a Switch 2 Direct in February more obvious.

Good point, perhaps a Switch 2-exclusive Direct is incoming.

I get the feeling there's more 1st party standalone announcements this week. Nintendo doesn't announce Directs 3 days in advance but they did this time so I think there'll be announcements on Tuesday and/or Wednesday. The most likely options I'd say are:

• Yoshi and the Mysterious Book release date trailer - Yoshi was the spotlight in the new Galaxy movie trailer, maybe follow that up with a release date for Mysterious Book
• Splatoon 11.0.0 update trailer + perhaps a new look at Splatoon Raiders - The update releases on Thursday but we don't know what's in it, last update trailer was added onto the Splatoon Raiders reveal
• Rhythm Heaven Groove release date trailer - NSO vouchers end on Friday, having preorders go live before Friday may convince more people to buy vouchers before they disappear.

Their information is usually about third party games which is why Nate often says he doesn't know if it will be a general direct or a partner.

What I see happening here is what happened every other generation turnover with Nintendo: they’re moving on. They’re not doing the swampy mess of most stuff being cross-gen; they’re getting out lol

The last “big” first-party Switch 1 games are this one and Rhythm Heaven. (Wouldn’t surprise me if we get a Rhythm Heaven post this week.) They’re getting that stuff out of the way, along with the movie stuff.

They’re clearing the runway for their future: the Switch 2 and its Direct in February.

Yeah there's no General Direct in Spring. Too many 1st party announcements coming from other channels and thinking that a General Direct is going to be packed with new content is the height of copium when we have so many games already announced for this year already. It'll just be a freaking Partner Showcase and we're not getting much in the way of further announcements for the year. SMH it's like Nintendo is trying to kill the Switch 2 with the lack of tentpole games.

Not sure what you all are talking about, I feel like Nintendo's making all these smaller announcements to get them out of the way before a general direct. There's not a ton scheduled for Switch 2 that's really exciting for non-hardcore Nintendo fans right now. We've got...

• Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave
• Yoshi and the Mysterious Book
• Rhythm Heaven
• Splatoon spinoff
• Mario Tennis

None of these (outside of maybe Fire Emblem) are heavy hitters that'll get most people without a Switch 2 excited. New entries for Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, and arguably Metroid Prime are what got people to get a new Switch (regardless of those games' ultimate quality). If Nintendo wants people to upgrade in 2026, they realistically need a new hype generator like a new 3D Mario, Smash, or Animal Crossing.

I think a general direct is gonna happen sooner rather than later, even if not necessarily next week.

Yeah, I expect the tail for Switch support to be relatively long personally, this is going to be "messy" for a while. But I don't think that means there won't be a majority Switch 2 only games in an upcoming Direct. And I expect for the Switch games they do talk about they're going to be constantly trying to find a Switch 2 angle to frame it from. Including for their back catalogue. Which is kinda what this flood of free updates and S2 Editions is about

Also I agree with what you said before. I see no reason why this Direct rules out anything for February. Remember late 2024 when they had a museum direct, an indie world and then a partner direct? Or last year when they went from a Kirby Air Riders direct, to a general direct, then back to Air Riders?

I know people will get out the pins and string and find reasons to come up with a theory that explains it. But we do this every time, and we're basically never right, so I'm not really buying the idea that this rules anything out other than a general direct this week specifically

@MonadoBoy I think there will definitely be a super big game this year but I don't know if they will announce one now or in June. Well... next gen Pokemon will almost certainly be announced in February which will also be a super big game but I meant besides that.

@skywake
Yea, I agree with most of that.

There will be a Direct in February (I think first week), it will be pretty much Switch 2 (though some titles may have Switch 1 versions, as you said), and all will be right with the world.

im excited to see what the tomodachi life direct brings! twenty minutes is a lot of information! i still think we will see a direct in february. the real question is, are we gonna see ninji return in MKW’S update in the general direct?
jokes aside, do you guys think there will be a mario kart world update this spring? if so, what do you want in it?

I'm looking forward to a possible February Direct, but I'm still not expecting to hear too many AAA announcements.

Nintendo clearly is taking their time to announce their biggest AAA games. These days, dev time for a AAA game takes almost the lifespan of a whole console generation. So for each AAA game, Nintendo only has one chance to time the launch just right. Maybe two at the most, like squeezing in TOTK. But so far, and even more so moving forward: just one new Animal Crossing, one new 3D Mario, etc.

Obviously we got lots of AA games for the Switch, and indeed the line is blurring a little bit about what you consider AA versus AAA (Fire Emblem Three Houses? Mainline Pokemon? Super Mario Wonder? Splatoon 3? Kirby's Forgotten Land? Pikmin 4?). Certainly Fire Emblem's latest game, Fortune's Weave, looks to lean more into AAA territory than AA. Yoshi's latest game also looks to contain plenty of production value for a AA game.

So it seems the standard is AA+ games filling out most of a console's life cycle while sprinkling in at least one console-defining AAA game for each IP.

Over the span of 7~ years, we only have 5 guaranteed AAA games to wait for: 3D Mario, 3D Zelda, the next Animal Crossing, Splatoon 4, and the next big Monolithsoft game. If you count Pokemon, which you should, then we also will have 2-3 AAA Pokemon games.
(Switch had 4 mainline Pokemon games, 2 new regions + 2 Legends. But now with a longer dev time, we may only get 1 new region and 1 new Legends game after ZA)
If you also count Fire Emblem, then we can add the tally to about 6-ish first-party AAA games not including Pokemon games (because Pokemon games historically have not inhibited Nintendo first-party schedule).

But that's still not a huge amount when sizing up the entire lifespan of a console generation. So Nintendo must be planning their timing very carefully, because the goal is for each AAA game to nurture the Switch 2's long-term momentum.

Jokes aside, um, I still wanna know if Ninji's being added. I'm not joking!! I need answers, Nintendo!!! (Oh, and Kamek)

@skywake Your example regarding Kirby was months apart (August 19th Air Riders Direct 1, September 12th general Direct, October 23rd Air Riders Direct 2). When Nintendo piles up Directs in multiple consecutive weeks, it's when there's no general Direct. For example:

• July 22nd 2025 - Pokemon Presents
• July 31st 2025 - Partner Showcase
• August 7th 2025 - Indie World

In this scenario, Nintendo skipped the usual June general Direct slot.