Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@FragRed With the announcement that xCloud is coming to Game Pass in 2020 and the nature of Series X such as crossgen games for at least a year and smart delivery I think Microsoft has lots of room to delay. Phil Spencer said price would be announced later this summer so I think perhaps specific release date and price will be announced in late August around when Gamescom would've been and have "holiday 2020" before then even if there's a delay planned.

@Grumblevolcano Phil Spencer also said I’m Unlocked podcast that no matter what happens software wise, they aren’t delaying the Xbox Series X. That’s a big thing to publicly say. Plus Microsoft is obviously throwing billions at their new console. xCloud I kinda think is going to cause a headache for Nintendo in the long term, especially when it comes to them releasing the Switch successor. He also said he’s got permission to lower the cost should he need to for next generation if you “read between the lines” which suggests they will hold out as long as possible for Sony to make the announcements first on price.

They tweeted about Assassin's Creed Valhalla on Series X this coming holiday, so.....

@FragRed When was that? The latest I remember was that they wouldn't delay the console because of 1 game being delayed like Halo Infinite but if the overall software schedule was affected they would.

@FragRed I don't think its a matter of can't, but one of 'don't want to'. Nintendo's never seemed to want to do E3 events, so this was the perfect excuse not to do so. Then they can switch to only in March/September instead of Feb/June/Sept for major events.

I can't really blame them. Beyond the general difficulties of making a Direct, a bad E3 Direct would likely be worse for Nintendo than none at all at this point. (see: 2015)

also KirbyGCN17 won't be able to put up those crowd reaction vids at the Nintendo store so what's even the point :V

Meaning that nothing would come out until September?

Another thing likely delayed, the bigger game cards that are supposed to come out by the end of this year. But maybe that point is null because everything else is delayed.

I think the only exclusive games we are getting that haven't got a concrete date yet are bravely default 2 in September, Zelda port in October and Mario collection in November. Maybe they will push bravely default 2 to 2021 and release a pikmen 3 port instead. But I can't see us getting a new paper Mario or breath of the wild 2 in 2020. Maybe some more third party ports but we should lower our expectations for the rest of the year

@FragRed
Microsoft and Sony have both learned their lessons when it comes to releasing initial prices of consoles. They've both "lost" entire console generations based on their initial console pricing.

I have to say, it's pretty amusing watching those two behemoths tip-toeing around each other with these new console reveals.

@rallydefault I am really curious how this is all going to play out. How long can each other go before someone has to make that announcement in order to get pre-orders open? Right now they’re both drip feeding details in bigger and bigger quantities as if trying to scare the other one into laying out all their cards first.

I’m assuming the assumption is that the March Direct would provide adequate announcements to take Nintendo through until the September Direct which would then reveal games right up until March time. Problem with September is that you run the danger in not having enough time to hype up any games coming out in October and November.

@FragRed The Q1 Direct usually reveals the year anyway. E3 Direct these past few years has mostly been used to promote already announced games and to reveal new 3rd party announcements. If the 3rd party Switch support drops a lot because of next gen consoles, the E3 Direct's purpose is reduced a lot.

@FragRed

Yes but this year it didn't provide enough. There's nothing big coming after Xenoblade is there?

@Dezzy Makes you wonder what Nintendo initially planned for the first half of the year if Animal Crossing hadn’t have been delayed from last year?

@FragRed My guess is Prime 4 with the restart happening around the same time as internal decisions for Animal Crossing delay.

Lol I bet they needed to delay the June Direct because all of their biggest reveals are ports and remasters. They're like "quick, someone find something original!"

@Grumblevolcano That sounds like a nail on the head answer.

@Dezzy The question is why would that be the case. Was something cancelled internally? Or just delayed? Clearly Nintendo's management wouldn't have intended to not have a major title for the year.

@link3710

I think Nintendo have just really struggled to transition all of their teams into HD development from a situation where a lot of them were working purely on handheld games.

We should technically be getting the Wii U and the 3DS software libraries combined on the Switch. It really doesn't feel like we've got that yet.

@Dezzy Yeah, I made a giant post as to why that is. Long story short we are (at least in prior years), the issue was that the Wii U's library was incredibly sparse, we lost a number of prolific partners from the 3DS (AlphaDream, Skip LTD, etc), the 3DS library was fluffed up a lot with Wii U ports and remasters, some of the smaller 3DS / Wii U franchises have moved to the mobile space, and yes, likely a couple teams (Creatures notably) are struggling to adjust.

But the other big issue is that they planned at least another year of 3DS releases that they suddenly had to cancel as they realized it was a sinking ship. Suddenly, 2019's 3DS releases all had to be retooled or scrapped, and that's when game release volume dropped.