Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Ding ding ding. This is exactly the issue. Bananza definitely has the ambitious budget and design philosophy to be a major title for Nintendo, but in one sense a "major" title needs to be one that a lot of people buy and a major factor in why people buy the system. And the current sales so far don't support the idea that it's that kind of game. I would love for this game to prove me wrong in that regard, but the sales collapse is not encouraging.

Ah sorry, that was unrelated to the Bananza discussion.

I was speaking more generally in terms of Nintendo and the Switch 2 philosophy. What I find to be insufficient is the game lineup, too reliant on re-releases and spces bumps and not enough new, original content. There's not enough new, next gen-ness in the Switch 2 lineup.

Part of me wonders if Bananza would have hyped more casuals up if they put Mario on DK's shoulder. I'm glad they didn't, but I feel like people probably would've taken more interest with it's reveal.

@VoidofLight I think it's the fundamental game design. It's chaotic and destructive but quite hollow. It didn't look very fun in trailers to me and others I know. Some of us still took the chance on it given Nintendo's pedigree, myself included, and didn't like it. So I didn't recommend it to those on the fence. Obviously anecdotal, but that's my journey with the game. I recommended Odyssey to many people on the fence back in the day — that time because the "capturing" gimmick turned some people off the game's reveal.

@OmnitronVariant Ehh I doubt it was the premise. Otherwise it wouldn't have sold as well imo.

@VoidofLight A new platformer by Nintendo for a brand new console, one of only two within the launch window, is bound to sell quite well no matter what. Not least because early adopters are more likely to give any new game a chance — myself included.

@VoidofLight
I'm showing you the dissonances in your argument.

And as @FishyS and others are pointing out - Bananza hasn't been out for a year yet. We don't know how it's going to sell overall, and like I said last night, it's entirely possible it ends up selling darn close to what BotW did in its first year. That would make it a pretty huge game, no?

Further, you can't judge a game or a system just by its holiday sales - again, did we not learn this from the doom and gloom around the Switch 2 hardware sales? And then we got the February numbers and most people were proved wrong.

Learn from history and learn from the data. Narrow-window holiday sales can be incredibly fickle and not indicative of overall trends. Anything that is discounted on Black Friday here in the U.S. (like PS5 was) is going to sell CRAZY amounts regardless of what it is and can then makes things look pretty lopsided for competitors that didn't offer steep discounts. You can discount the lowest-quality TV on Amazon for Black Friday and it will sell in droves.

But overall, the numbers stay good for the Switch 2. Not just good, but record-setting. So it's bizarre to see this "I expected more" stuff. It's unrealistic. It's bizarre for @Bolt_Strike to say he expects tentpole titles to sell 10+ million when a game like BotW didn't sell 10 million in its first year. Again, unrealistic. In the sense that sales like that (unless you're Mario Kart lol) take time.

Nintendo made good choices with their launch window, and the data is showing us that it's panning out. Nintendo is an old company with franchises nearly 40 years old - they know what sells and what doesn't, and despite our feelings about "big" games and what online people like us want and might be disappointed without, the data tells the real story.

I really try to avoid Ignoring people online (the literal only exception to that is OmnitronVariantand it was just because I was getting exhausted, not because I have anything against them 😅). That said, holy moly some of you guys are getting darn neat that point, too! I love reading this thread, except for when I read 3 pages of it and the conversation hasn't budged lol

@CaleBoi25
Don't like what somebody is saying? Label them whatever and ignore them. That's the way of it.

To be fair, people are still judging Switch 2 by holiday sales... just by correct holiday sales rather than the made up ones people were talking about a month or two ago.

I've never ignored anyone of this site - I figure it's easy enough to skim or skip a conversation if I am no longer interested in it and the truly toxic people eventually get banned.

As for this conversation... I just realized we are still in the 'next direct' thread 💀 I know the conversation started out trying to predict whether a new direct was coming based on how major the currently announced games are, but somehow it has turned more into a Switch 2 or 'is Switch 2 worth it' thread type conversation. Whoops...

We should probably all move the conversation here back to predictions, announcements and rumours.

@FishyS
Sure, but part of my point is that holiday sales (correct or incorrect lol) cannot be used to extrapolate broad sales trends, especially when you have a primary competitor offering steep discounts and your own brand is not.

And also yes: We've gone very off track here.

Edit: Also wondering when this thread will be moved to the Switch 2 forum, especially considering the majority of announcements are skewing Switch 2 these days and presumably into the future.

I almost asked the same thing in the last post. It's a little unclear what the correct spot is since Switch 1 will exist for awhile and this thread also talks about movie directs and other Nintendo non-Switch related news and announcements. Maybe the thread should be in the News forum rather than either Switch 1 or Switch 2?

@BongoBongo123 You created the thread and have the power to move it to Switch 2 or News. What are your thoughts? It's been one of the most successful threads on these forums and it would be pity if it eventually died out in the Switch 1 thread.

The only feasible non-Pokemon mega-sellers for Switch 2 that could arrive this year are the next Luigi's Mansion and 3D Mario, anything else is 2027 at earliest.

My guess is the next Luigi's Mansion 4 is an October launch while the next 3D Mario is a holiday 2027 release.

Putting aside that I don't agree with this assessment, even if it were true this wouldn't be something that would turn off the silent majority of casuals that would drive the kind of sales it needs. If anything this would have the opposite problem, it'd be a game that a ton of casuals buy into but the vocal minority of hardcore fans hate. Casuals want something flashy and appealing that they can play for a short period of time, this game fits this bill. So I don't think that's the reason it's not selling well.

Yeah, it seems like a lot of people here have trouble staying on topic and frequently go on tangents. I myself have gotten swept up in that a bit.

Really I think it's probably best people leave the thread for the time being unless they really want to discuss the credibility of some less than credible rumors. Like I was saying before we got on this sales tangent, everyone just desperate for a big reveal but aside from Gen 10 Pokemon on Pokemon Day, we just don't know of anything on the horizon yet. So that's leading to a lot of people frothing at the mouth desperately clinging onto the slightest bit of confirmation from leakers about a General, even if it's not credible.

Yeah I've been wondering this myself, it's weird that this conversation continues on the Switch 1 forum when most of the conversation is Switch 2 related. I'm down for moving this to another forum.

@FishyS Yeah, I'm up for moving the thread to Swich 2 now that the console has become established. How do I move it? Thanks.

i've encounted a strange number of arguments in these forums where people get so involved they completely forget they're on the wrong thread. maybe we should make the title bar even bigger...

If you press edit on the very first post in this thread, 'forum' will be an edit option as well as the actual text you wrote.

Seems that moving the thread to the Switch 2 forum made about 6 years of posts disappear.

omg, why would that happen?? We've moved threads before. I hope they're not gone permanently...

@antdickens @DreamlandGem Sorry for the pings, but can this be fixed?

Easy come, easy go lol

@FishyS I’ll have to take a look tomorrow, don’t worry they won’t have been lost for good. Leave it with me.