Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@VoidofLight Wouldn't the choice to make Pokopia a GKC be up to The Pokémon Company since they're the publisher in Japan? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe developers deal with release decisions like physical formats.

Also, for what it's worth, Age of Imprisonment was a Koei Tecmo-developed game that was released fully on the Game Card.

@VoidofLight The game was published by the Pokémon Company in Japan, I don't think Koei Tecmo had anything to do with the publishing?
KT did however publish Age of Imprisonment in Japan which was a proper physical release.

Edit: @Upsidedownrowlet took the words right outta my mouth lol

But yeah the whole Sony fiasco did make me have a brief Thanos moment with the key-cards ("perhaps I treated you too harshly".)

I think Nintendo were well-intentioned with the key-cards, providing a way publishers can have a 'proper' retail presence (no code-in-a-box) while not being constrained to the size and speed limitations of the 64GB game card. But take something like Street Fighter 6, (I'm sure there are better examples) a game that was around 50GB at launch published by AAA studio Capcom. Surely they can fork out to put one of their top franchises on the card...but then again this is Capcom. The same people who released a physical edition Mega Man Legacy Collection 1+2 with only the first game on the cartridge, bearing in mind the whole package is only around 6GB I think. They just couldn't resist cheaping out on the 1GB card.

And in some ways I get it, producing Switch 2 cartridges is a costly endeavour for what is currently still a relatively small install base but the lack of future proofing does sting quite a bit.

Similar with GKC being maybe well intentioned, I also think 70 dollar Switch 2 first party games might be partially the fault of 3rd parties. It would be at the bare minimum, absurdly awkward if Nintendo was consistently undercutting the pricing of 3rd parties on their system, and 3rd parties would likely be stubborn about Swicth 2 ports of Ps5 era games being 70 (especially for the better ports that kinda justify it). Though another reason is probably Nintendo trying to keep some level of consistency with Switch 2 upgrades costing money.

It would also make more sense their willingness to pivot just because one Mario sports game bombed if they weren't doing it purely because of either greed or thinking 70 dollars was normalized already (though both are also obviously relevant). It makes more sense to change your business practice when your system is already breaking records anyway if you were already not fully committed to perma-charging 70 for all games.

Of course I've consistently held the belief that their stubbornness for full price or nothing during the Switch generation and a lack of good sales were worse than price increases, so in general I feel a begrudging understanding of something that is still disappointing in current economy (though Fire Emblem I don't because they're gonna hurt the series that way). And in general I'm kinda fascinated by Nintendo's greed, because of how weirdly passive they feel about it. It feels like other companies are often obsessed with greed and endless growth over anything else, while Nintendo's worst moments of greed just feel like passively letting greedy thing happens. Like whenever I see people question the validity of two Pokemon versions, even ignoring any obvious counterpoints (no reasonable person buys both versions for themselves), I do feel simultaneously that it makes sense and was always done for sincere, good reasons for gamers, but also that corporate people are still gonna appreciate the increased sales that can come from it. The stupid Mario 35th anniversary debacle was also probably also sincere on some level but I'm sure the most corporate, money minded Nintendo executives were happy by FOMO and whatnot. Whereas another company anything cool either would not be by design or overshadowed by what the executives wanted in the short term. And I think that sums up why even when they do bad things, Nintendo never comes across the same to me as most AAA game companies.

Speaking of Pokemon, what are the odds of getting a Pokemon Presents in August? After all, there's often a presentation in Early August (though they did Late July last year).

Though WiWa is coming 2027, if VoidofLight is correct that it was indeed delayed from a late 2026 release shortly prior to reveal, the release of the game could very well be months earlier than the normal holiday slot, so a trailer in August wouldn't be too crazy (not that it was terribly crazy considering, well, we already had a gameplay trailer). I wouldn't anticipate a big overview trailer though.

There's also the Pokopia DLC, which doesn't currently have many details, so that could also be good Presents material if it isn't used as Today fodder first.

@UpsideDownRowlet I'd say pretty low. They usually don't do Presents unless they have main series game news, and unless WiWa is releasing before the end of the fiscal year I don't think they have anything until next Pokemon Day. They don't need a Presents to show more info on the Pokopia DLC, they could easily put that info on Nintendo Today or some other kind of social media shadowdrop.

In terms of most likely future Directs, it's probably game specific Directs for other IPs (Fire Emblem and Zelda 40th especially seem more likely than a Pokemon Presents) and maybe mainlines in September and Spring depending on how much they have to show. I myself am more anticipating Zelda 40th so we can actually learn WTF the OoT remake actually is and either a Metroid 40th or mainline to officially announce Ravenous.

@UpsideDownRowlet considering all other Koei Tecmo games are game key cart, I think the fact AoI is full cartridge release is uh... because Zelda and Nintendo lol.

(the list of KT games on switch 2 I can find easily and is key card: Nobunaga's ambition, wild heart s, dynasty warriors: origins, fatal frame 2, and wo long, and there's probably others but these are all key cards)

@UpsideDownRowlet @Nintoz Ahh, then it's probably correct that GameFreak pushed for a Game Key Card. I sorta hope that Gen 10 is treated better, since we know that Nintendo and Gamefreak both underestimated how well Pokopia would do sales-wise, but I guess we should be prepared for Gen 10 to also be on a Game Key Card as a possibility.

As for a Pokemon Presents, I don't think we'll see that any time soon. Most of the people who have correctly leaked things for both Z-A and Gen 10 are saying not to expect Winds and Waves until late next year. I imagine if that's the release period, GameFreak is going to hold off on marketing the game more until February 27th 2027, or around that time period. I'd imagine that they'll show the box legendaries in that Presents.

@VoidofLight As I said before, I think it's both sides (game freak I don't think we know yet, and KT prefers key card on majority of their release. I only see AoI as their only full cartridge release)

Edit: actually I think I'll say that we don't know what game freak prefers until more of their stuff is out that's their own thing (pokemon isn't their own thing, so we'll have to wait until something like little town hero or somesuch XD)

100% if the rumors are correct about it being a late 2027 game (probably in the usual November slot) we won't see it again until Pokemon Day. That would follow their marketing schedule for Z-A and how they've marketed new games in the past. The usual pattern used to be reveal on Pokemon Day, blowout trailer in the summer (usually June, but SV held it until August), release in November. Now they may be stretching the marketing cycle a bit more because of dev time increases, we may be seeing a new pattern of reveal during the Pokemon Day the year before release (~18 months before release), blowout trailer next year's Pokemon Day, release in November.

Again, the only way I see them showing off WiWa before Pokemon Day is if the rumors are wrong and it's releasing in like, Q1 2027 or sometime around there. If it's late Spring, Summer, or Fall, they're absolutely holding the next reveal for Pokemon Day.

Not to get too much into particulars, but it's still not really Game Freak, since they're a different entity from The Pokémon Company (although GF does hold a significant stake of ownership in TPC). While Game Freak is responsible for the development of the mainline games, The Pokémon Company deals with their distribution and presumably the nature of their physical production (I also think I heard something about TPC being responsible for commissioning mainline games, but I digress) in addition to other branches of the Pokémon brand outside of mainline games. Depending on how much Nintendo was displeased with the reaction to Pokopia being a GKC, they may influence TPC to pursue a fully on-cart release for WiWa.

While I was leaning towards no news for WiWa until Pokémon Day, the release period being late 2027 as you say is quite surprising to me. Considering the last minute delay and the showcase of WiWa gameplay footage at Pokémon Day 2026 when Z-A did not back in 2024, I thought a regular Holiday release seemed unlikely, but if that's what the leakers say. Still, I would not be surprised if the release window is currently just undecided, especially with that aforementioned delay; hopefully this all just means the game has all the polish it needs on launch day.

Yeah not expecting any news on Winds/Waves until Pokemon Day. Not expecting anything on Xenoblade Genesis until next year either.

We'll probably get a Fortunes Weave Direct, a Zelda 40th Direct (OoT details, Zelda movie teaser), and maybe an Indie World before the next general Direct in September.

February 2027 will be a Partner Showcase rather than a general if I had to guess.

@IceClimbers I could see Genesis getting news in the September direct possibly, but part of me feels like it's probably later in 2027, yeah.

I think it'll be something like:

• Week beginning July 27th - Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave Direct
• Week beginning August 3rd - Standalone Metroid 6 Nintendo Today announcement (October 1st or 8th release)
• Week beginning August 10th - Indie World
• Week beginning August 17th - Zelda 40th anniversary Direct (reveals OoT remake release date as December 3rd and some other stuff like movie news)
• Week beginning August 24th - TPC makes some Pokemon mobile and TCG announcements at Worlds (like what they did in 2024)
• Week beginning August 31st or September 7th - Partner Showcase

I am predicting 2027 as the release year of Metroid 6.

Looking at the lineup if they're skipping one of September or February Generals, it's most likely going to be September. It seems like they've taken to a pattern of alternating between General and Partner now, the last time we had 2 consecutive Directs in the typical February/June/September schedule was 2023. Furthermore, the lineup feels pretty filled out the rest of the year to the point where I don't know if they really want to have a General and instead they just fill in the gaps with Nintendo Today announcements of smaller projects until February. So what we've seen right now suggests they may not be in a hurry to pile on a new wave of announcements in September, they're more likely to just coast on what they currently have and save their next major announcements until February.

@Bolt_Strike I could see that being the case, especially if we get dedicated Directs for FEFW, Zelda 40th, and possibly even a Partner Showcase.

@Bolt_Strike I don't think there's really enough evidence to suggest that Nintendo is deliberately going for an alternating pattern of Directs, as 2024 and 2025 were special cases with the Switch winding down and Switch 2 starting up. In 2024, there was just one Direct because there were only enough games for one Direct that year. Had they held a September Direct, it would've truly been an all-timer, revealing Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition alone. Then in 2025, the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct in April served the purpose of the usual Summer Direct by revealing the full slate for the remainder of 2025. There are reasons for recent Direct skips beyond just "they felt like it".

With regards to the February 2026 Direct being skipped, that comes as a result of an abundance of 2026 games already being announced. The only first party game released in the first half of 2026 that was not revealed in 2025 was Star Fox in June, which of course was a remake. After that, it's not until Nintendo Switch Sports Resort in October that a game is revealed after 2025 is released. Due to having too many Spring/Summer 2026 games revealed prior to February 2026 to the point that the only possible reveal for a Direct then would be a singular remake with Star Fox. Clearly, Nintendo got ahead of themselves and ended up with not enough announcements to make a full February General Direct, so they opted for a partner showcase instead.

Now, looking ahead to a possible September Direct, I think it is, as of now reasonable to expect a General. While we do have two 2027 games already revealed with Xenoblade Genesis and Pokémon Winds & Waves, neither of those titles are specifically slated for early 2027, so there's still room for several games to be announced. Unless Nintendo goes absolutely crazy on Nintendo Today, there's no reason why there can't be a September General Direct.

As for February, it again depends on how much they announce in advance. If they again announce games through half of 2027 and beyond, then there will likely be another February Partner Showcase. Otherwise, a February general is possible.

@Bolt_Strike Not having a general Direct until February also allows Nintendo to be very flexible in case of any sudden GTA6 developments like a delay to 2027 or GTA Online 2 ending up releasing in early 2027.