Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

That was an alright Direct. Ending on Bethesda ports was... something I guess. Although I was FULLY expecting it to end on Call of Duty so I guess Oblivion Remastered is better.

Rebirth is coming much sooner than expected, and looks great.

There was quite a few 3rd party ports I thought might show up that didn't though - Blue Prince, Metaphor, E33, Death Stranding, Halo, etc. I'm sure we'll see them in due time though!

Overall though there's plenty of 3rd party titles launching over the next few months, and I'm absolutely ECSTATIC for RE Requiem and Pragmata.

Any Direct with a Falcom game is a good Direct, in my book.

No Fromsoft announcement is disappointing.

Duskbloods makes more sense on a first party direct because of the exclusivity but Elden Ring still not having a release date could point to a bigger issue

@Don from what I've heard being able to understand the text is pretty important in those games

I’m of the belief that a major 1st party game is coming this holiday, and that they’ll wanna reveal sooner than the former E3 timeframe so that it can have a hype cycle of longer than 4-5 months. My prediction is that they’ll do this by either:

A) a bigger than normal Mar10 day where the big game (something Mario related in this case) is announced, followed by a full general direct in June at the earliest. Or:

B) A general direct in April (perhaps setting a new precedent of 2 general directs a year in April/September?) which reveals most of the second half of 2026, including the big holiday exclusive.

I dunno if this will end up being notably great examples of them, but people actively unenthused for niche Japanese games are lame as heck. Especially after years of Unreal Engine Game Awards games that are all the same 3 games, the over the top soccer game series and the 2d game that randomly turns into 3d action combat for some reason and literally anything murder mystery focused are wildly interesting compared to at least 2/3 of the western AAA video game industry.

Admittedly I also think this Direct not choosing a ton of slop that sums up an increasing amount of AAA game companies means I might've been kinder to it then say, 5 years ago when the pre-release Ps5 events made me somewhat excited for this gen until I realized these companies preferred layoffs over video games.

Also helps that I have no attachment to Nintendo being at its most successful, since again, that is actually bad for us tbh, so if we get cooler games than AAA slop and Nintendo is forced to be less greedy by underwhelming general audiences...GREAT. Best case scenario tbh. (more realistically, bigger games are coming later)

Pragmata demo was a pleasant surprise, I have to admit. I'll probably get that because it does seem quite refreshing. Not sure what platform yet, but it does run and look nice enough on Switch 2.

@OmnitronVariant the demo was great. I initially had no interest in this game but the demo has really sold me in it - it’s just intriguing and feels great to play.

Also agree that the Monster Hunter Stories performance is disappointing. Hopefully not representative of the final product.

@Haruki_NLI If the Wii ever got a game day and date with another platform it'd be the PS2 or the PSP.

I'm a little overwhelmed, to be honest.

I didn’t mind the Direct. Am glad I watched in spite of not feeling any wow factor.

One of the big takeaways to me from this showcase is how wide Nintendo’s reach is for variety and content from partners. Ending with Todd Howard and the Bethesda games was actually quite smart. It may not have been what a lot of fans wanted, but it made for excellent marketing to indicate that some of their biggest projects will be playable on handheld and with a commitment to continue adding on their catalogue in the future. This is huge for a lot of other fans, and illustrates that Nintendo is trying to be even bigger than we might have suspected going into this gen. The third party support so far is bonkers, and we’re not even a full year in. So no, not exciting for many of us (Duskbloods? E33? RDR2?), but they know what they’re doing and it’s pretty compelling. I think the next Direct will be the one that satiates that gap some of us are feeling.

One game that I thought was oddly absent was South of Midnight, which is supposed to be coming in Spring. Thought we would have seen a release date here.

That being said, it's coming to PS5 at the same time, so maybe we'll see a date at the rumored State of Play?

The Direct was fine imo. While I wish they didn't have such a lame closeout with just dumping a ton of Bethesda ports, I had been complaining about the over reliance on anime games/JRPGs for a while, and while this still had that, the Bethesda games at felt like they at least addressed those complaints. There were some games I was hoping to see that didn't show up unfortunately(Konami was present but no MGS or Silent Hill, Bethesda but no DOOM, No Gears or Halo from MS), I did like some of what did show up(FF VII Rebirth, RE9, Pragmata, Orbitals, Indiana Jones, Digimon and Tales of Arise), might also get some of the smaller releases. Unfortunately not much in the way of new announcements, but otherwise I was whelmed. It's not a great partner showcase, but not bad enough to warrant some of the negative responses(Seriously? Worst ever? Are we gonna forget the time they had only 4 games and one was f***ing WWE Battlegrounds?). Some people really need to stop doing this to themselves

@Buizel I was wondering how Stories 3 would run, given that it seems to be using the same engine that Wilds has- and also has an Open World like Wilds. Pretty much got the gut feeling it's just going to be another situation like MH Wilds where it runs abysmal on all platforms. Haven't tried the demo yet- so I don't know for sure.

Also the Direct was kinda lame. Was expecting at least one new announcement of a game that hadn't been revealed yet- but nah. I just hope that the next general direct isn't too far away.

@VoidofLight At least in handheld it's very much a case of the MH Wilds issues. Some people in other comments have said they think it runs and looks great, maybe that's in docked mode, because I can't understand it if we're talking about handheld. I don't use my S2 docked because it defeats the purpose of it entirely for me, so I wouldn't know.

@OmnitronVariant
Using a hybrid system in one of its hybrid ways defeats the purpose for you?

Orbitals looks AWESOME, and I knew nothing of that game before this. Pragmata, too - definitely two pickups for me beyond the stuff I was already hoping for like Indiana Jones and Final Fantasy.

I’m still on the fence about Resident Evil. I’ve played some of the games, and I like the action combat, but I’m not a horror/gore kind of person, so I don’t know if I could really enjoy the whole thing.

@IceClimbers I think it'll be Starfield in the rumoured State of Play meanwhile South of Midnight either appears in the next Direct or is a random standalone trailer.

I'm hearing rumors of a Direct on the 17th, has anyone else heard that? Do we have a source or is it just vibes lol?

@CaleBoi25 Probably vibes and wishful thinking because people want to believe that the Partner direct wasn't all that we're getting for the next few months. I personally wanna see if those Xenoblade Chronicles 4 leaks are actually real- but I doubt that we're getting a general direct anytime soon.

@CaleBoi25 There have been some rumors from relatively credible sources saying potentially a Direct in March, but nothing that really feels like a lock. So there's some rumblings about a General to follow but it's hard to say for sure.

Personally I'll believe it when I see it, most of this generation has been pure disappointment so far and it feels like they have next to nothing when they need to go big. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but I've been burned too many times to believe anything before I see it from Nintendo. So I'm assuming next General isn't until June or even September until Nintendo says otherwise.

@VoidofLight That may be part of it, both fans and investors are starving for those big megaton games right now and Nintendo's largely been giving us crumbs for the last 6 months or so. Everyone's just desperate for a big announcement right now, so anyone that predicts a General or a big game announcement is sure to get clout right now (I have seen several claims of 3D Mario for example, it's possible we may indeed get it but also people are very upset and confused that we didn't get one last year so everyone wants to know when this is happening).

We're almost certainly getting Gen 10 Pokemon this year, so that's something, but I think we really need a megaton beyond that and I fear Nintendo might think that's enough sadly. The good news there is that Furukawa acknowledged the issue, admitted that the Switch 2 is underperforming in the West, and said Year 2 and 3 are very important, but that still doesn't point to big games coming soon so IDK if they will (or even can) do anything to turn things around in the near future other than what's already set in stone.