@Grumblevolcano While this is true, given that they have Zelda news as well, I wouldn't be surprised if it's just a general direct. Handled like the last general direct they had in September of last year.

The 9/8 Direct rumor isn't something I feel like we should believe in, given it comes from the guy who refused to pay his employees (Andre Segers). I hardly believe SwitchForce saying that the direct is on the 10th, but at least there's been precedent with SwitchForce being right in the past. No general direct at all in September would be odd, given that this would be the first time they've skipped September in a good while.

@VoidofLight perhaps this is influenced by the whole not paying people thing (seriously, how is gamexplain still going) but andre has a very punchable face to me.
also yeah most of the stuff out of that site (and ours, i will continue to only care about this website for the forums) is pretty low-tier garbo, so

@squiddu-real I think Gamexplain at this point is only run by Andre, like how SwitchForce is only run by the one guy instead of him and his friends like it was when the channel first started. Andre used to have a few employees that would come in and out after he lost the original Gamexplain crew, but eventually I think those people also left due to Andre mistreating them. I think at this point he has a small but dedicated following somehow, and I will never understand why. Guess its like how TheBitBlock used to be a big Nintendo YouTuber but then went off the deep end and started bleeding subscribers. Now the only people who watch Josh Thomas (TheBitBlock) are the people who stuck with him for years.

That being said, the main reason I don't really believe Andre's claims mainly just have to do with how I doubt he has a source due to how irrelevant his channel is now. The guy has every reason to claim that he's heard of a direct date, because if he's somehow right about it- he'll end up getting more eyes on his channel for potential future rumors or leaks. It's the same marketing tactic that someone like PixelPar on Twitter used back when that guy started claiming direct dates. He got a few right, and then used that audience he built from those "leaks" to guide them onto his own gaming news website.

suddenly reminded of the completionist. its almost funny when these channels try to hold onto whatever they have left as desperately as possible, as if they really gain all that much from it...

@squiddu-real coughs in a very nin10doland manner

@squiddu-real
This is probably the least original and most commonly seen idea for additional TTYD content possible in the history of the entire Internet...

...but it would genuinely be crazy cool to have the Switch 2 Edition be "+ Paper Luigi's Story" and replace all of Luigi's tales in the Waffle Kingdom with actual short gameplay sequences where you play them out.

@TripleJump Having playable Luigi segments would ruin the joke unfortunately. The idea of the joke is that we don't actually get to see what happens, so when we hear Luigi's side of the story, he's over glamorizing something to make it sound cooler than what actually happened. His partners are all upset at him for the most part because what he tells Mario about his adventure isn't the truth.

Plus Luigi's adventure is basically just the same story but changed slightly. It wouldn't really add much to play it.

@VoidofLight could be wrong but i thank you for being the only other person besides me to mention its practically the same story as mario's instead of just the first thing

@VoidofLight I only believe the 10th because of Just Dance. There just has to be some sort of Direct with 3rd party support on that day at the earliest for Nintendo to do their annual promotion of Just Dance but it also needs to be before TGS which pretty much limits it to the 10th unless they start doing Saturday/Sunday Directs again like in the Wii U era.

As for the 8th, if an event happened that day I think the only event that would make sense is Fire Emblem Treehouse Live though I wouldn't be surprised if they just put the overview trailer up on Nintendo Today sometime and just have the 8th being the announcement of Partner Showcase on 10th.

The biggest thing that makes me question general Direct is that major Zelda news would overshadow Fire Emblem and I don't think there'd be any harm in saving it for after Fire Emblem. Sony Pictures would also benefit as the Resident Evil movie comes out the same week as Fire Emblem so after Resident Evil is out, have the Zelda movie reveal.

@Grumblevolcano I don't know if Zelda news would overshadow Fire Emblem completely tbh. Fortune's Weave already hit the top of Amazon's pre-order chart a bit ago, and the direct got a good chunk of people excited for the game. I don't know if a TreeHouse event would be good for Fortune's Weave, given that Fire Emblem isn't really the best for a live demo like that.

I just think a General Direct is more likely, with Zelda news probably being the opening segment (similar to the Mario anniversary), and Fire Emblem DLC being announced during the middle of the direct. Of course, most of this is just me hoping for a General Direct because partner directs usually aren't interesting at all, and it feels weird for Nintendo to skip the September slot. Especially since October, November, and December usually don't get big game news.

Sure, if you consider 2024 to be "a good while". September 2024 not only didn't have a general, but any Direct period (although August had a combined Indie World + Partner Showcase on the 27th and a Nintendo Musuem Direct on the 19th).

In actuality, they've largely been alternating every other Direct slot (February/March, June, and September) since 2024 for Generals. 2023 was the last time we had a General back to back in those time slots (in fact we had a Direct in each of the 3 slots in 2023). Since then, it's consistently been a General, followed by a Partner Showcase:

Spring 2024- No General, Partner Showcase February 21st
June 2024- General Direct June 18th
September 2024- No General, Partner Showcase August 27th
Spring 2025- General Direct March 27th with a bonus General Direct for Switch 2 on April 2nd (this may be an exception due to the hardware generation transition)
June 2025- No General, Partner Showcase July 31st
September 2025- General Direct September 12th
Spring 2026- No General, Partner Showcase February 5th
June 2026- General Direct June 9th

If the pattern continues, we'll be skipping a general in September and not getting another one until February/March. I could potentially see some people being hesitant to call this a pattern yet because we don't have enough examples, but I think if we come back in about 13 months and we do in fact get a Partner Showcase this month, a General in Spring, a Partner Showcase in June, and a General in September 2027, by that point it may be hard to deny and that would be a strong indication that this pattern is intentional. Mark my post and come back to it by the end of September 2027, if we get any Direct schedule other than what I just posted that would indicate that I'm wrong about this but if I go 4/4 that speaks volumes about the new normal for their Direct schedule.

Anyway, beyond that pattern, I do think there's other reasons related to the current situation why this might be a Partner Showcase instead of a General. Their lineup is largely set for the rest of the year (we don't know OoT's release date, but it's an easy prediction that it'll be November) and they might not feel they have enough to talk about right now other than Nintendo Today overview trailers/game specific Directs for upcoming games like Fire Emblem, Switch Sports Resort, and OoT and social media drops of smaller games to fill the gaps for January and/or February. I think they feel they can coast on that and see no need to announce anything further until Spring, giving their teams working on 2027 games more time to cook so they're in a more presentable state.

The Direct "pattern" is almost assuredly due to the console transition and them revealing Splatoon Raiders/Rhythm Heaven/Tomodachi Life really early.

Also, I'm tired of repeating this, but the Holiday lineup being known or not is only relevant to a potential June Direct, not a September Direct. It's the January through March, into early Spring lineup that's relevant for a September Direct.

And for that period for 2027, we know absolutely nothing. Unless it's just S2Es and a Switch 1 release, I can't see them wanting to reveal that part of the lineup on Nintendo Today.

@IceClimbers Great minds think alike, was about to post that too about not having anything Early 27 so that definitely could be filled up a bit..

That doesn't explain 2024, these reasons aren't relevant to them skipping Spring and September 2024.

That is entirely possible, there were two of these smaller projects rumored in the form of the Kirby Planet Robobot remaster and Pikmin 4 S2E, they could put both of those in that slot. Or it's possible they have one and skip one month (maybe January). Or something else. Regardless I don't think it's out of the question to have only smaller games in 2027 until the Spring Direct.

@Bolt_Strike Two standard direct times got skipped in a row - Sep 2024 and Feb 2025. I think both were clearly skipped because of the upcoming Switch 2 and the fact that there simply weren't too many Switch 1 games left to announce. Instead they shoved a short Switch 1 direct in March a week before a Switch 2 direct to de-emphasize Switch 1.

if we have to go that far back for a supposed pattern because of a skip that had different reasons to happen more than once...

Here is another way to look at recent general directs

• 2019 - 3 - Standard 3 Feb/Jun/Sep Directs
• 2020 - 0 - no general because it was 2020.
• 2021 - 3 - Standard 3 Feb/June/Sep Directs
• 2022 - 2 - skipped June (reason: E3 died)
• 2023 - 3 - Standard Feb/June/Sep Directs
• 2024 - 1 - only June (presumed reason: Switch 1 end of life)
• 2025 - 3 - but the first 2 were at weird times because of Switch 2 release.
• 2026 - ?? - Skipped Feb presumably because of the massive amount of games announced in 2025 as part of the Switch 2 advertising.

Going by this, the pattern is 3 general directs every other year and random amounts in off years ... although usually for pretty specific reasons.

As a side comment, February, June, and September are in the first 3 quarters of the year. 2025 kept to that same pattern of one general a quarter even though the precise months were different than usual so I wouldn't say it truly missed any directs in 2025.

I do have the game but it was around the Switch 2 reveal I believe that I was playing it and at that point the game's performance was bugging me enough to put it down and wait...

There's code in the game that shows 4K60 support so I'm still optimistic, and Nintendo's proven repeatedly that we really don't have any real way of predicting things like S2 updates since they dropped MK8 on the most random day a year after the console launched. 60 frames isn't crucial at all, but I wonder if the game was meant to run that way and was capped at 30 because of the (impressive but technically demanding) graphics and lighting tech.

I find it funny that now three people have said the direct is happening on three different days next week. AttackofTheBacklog is saying that the direct is on the 9th, Andre Segers from GameXplain is saying that it's happening on the 8th, and SwitchForce is saying the 10th. Watch it be none of these, and either happen on September 11th (although Nintendo wouldn't pick this date for obvious reasons), or the week after.

@VoidofLight There was a theory a while back that Nintendo were feeding potential leakers with false information to track down the inside sources.

That said, it might all just be a means of covering for bad guesses.

Either way, the lack of a definitive date isn't doing wonders for anyone's credibility.