Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@sixrings Furthermore, how does Sony doing well justify cancelling Nintendo?
@BruceCM I agree! But Nintendo's third party game has never been particularly strong. Or at least, not for a couple generations. There are a few "second party" companies working with Nintendo, though I suppose Sony has a lot more? I actually don't know, I don't follow Sony too closely so I'm a bit out of the loop with them and the games they make lol

@sixrings I knew the F-Zero was fake

@sixrings Okay, but that still doesn't mean Splatoon, Animal Crossing, Super Smash Bros, Fire Emblem and Kirby aren't all major franchises, even if you lop everything Mario/Luigi/Wario/Yoshi/DK under the same umbrella. They're all bigger than Metroid at least, and all but FE and Kirby are bigger than Zelda. Plus they do have their more casual franchises too, as I pointed out.

Yes of course, but it's a bit different with Nintendo because they're the one company where people overwhelmingly buy their hardware for those key first party exclusives.

If Sony had made no Uncharted games this generation, they'd probably be fine either way. Even though people love Uncharted. But if Nintendo had made no 3D Zelda or 3D Mario game, there'd be some serious unrest among the Nintendo audience.

Yeah, I don't really follow Sony stuff that particularly, @EOTW .... I see gaming news, generally & that was one example I think the same company does Uncharted, which isn't as interesting to me. Apart from the obvious RE8 & Pragmata, which were duly announcing they'd also release on PC & XBox within minutes of the Sony show, there were some saying 'timed exclusives' & other 'console exclusives'
Sony presumably make their weird Sackboy thing but I don't know just how many wanted that. I quite liked a lot of the stuff they showed but that's all coming to at least PC as well, so that's the part I'm interested in

@BruceCM problem is Nintendo doesn’t want to have other companies with there IP’s
And releasing other ips they are rather strict on.
Most teams they own are also forced to work with the first party stuff, Nintendo is still really old fashioned with that and they should step up there game so they could release more games in a faster way.

@EOTW whose cancelling Nintendo. I'm all in. I don't own a PlayStation. I own four switches, Nintendo wall paper, and a DK arcade machine. That doesn't change the fact that Nintendo's PR has absolutely sucked lately. You know if you don't have anything to show there is no need to have a direct mini. It just gets people's hopes up no matter how you phrase it..

@sixrings I think the idea is that they will start showing more minis, with only a little content in each one. My prediction is that we will see several similar directs this year. They are trying to desensitize directs specifically so people don't overhype themselves like this. Since times are very uncertain right now they don't want to announce anything too far out. If anything big gets announced it will likely come out of left field (and more likely won't be happening any time soon).

@sixrings ... Why? Wouldn't a playstation be a far better investment than a second Switch, never mind four of them?

That was a brief yet juicy Nintendo Direct Mini. That chibi 2K wrastlin' game doesn't look half bad. As an rpg fan, the SMT III HD Remaster reveal is a giga-ton announcement. And I'm glad SMT V is still in production.

Some serious goodwill for Atlus has been renewed for me.

I look forward to the next one of these Direct Minis. Next month maybe?

Yeah, it doesn't help in the current situation, @DenDen .... But there's the Pokemon stuff, that's not exactly made by Nintendo. There's Fire Emblem, similarly but they could do with a few more companies doing things like that!

@link3710 I host Nintendo lan parties with the games that will allow me to. Perhaps my frustration is partially based on how much I have invested. That said we have a great time playing the multiplayer games we are able to. So much I'd consider buying another 4 so I can have 4 V 4 splatoon. But then I need 8 copies of each game. It's really expensive. On the other hand I really don't enjoy single player gaming much anymore. So I don't need a PlayStation since they mostly have 1 player games but if xbox has free online I will be buying 4 Xboxes.

@EOTW that's fine if it's their idea to release info this way. But clearly it's a divisive strategy. I'm not the lone weirdo on here complaining. At least half of the people don't agree with that strategy and I'm sure either side won't be swayed into thinking one way is more logical than the other. I think it sucks. The end.

@sixrings Fair enough. I think it's a good aproach given the circumstances. Hype has run rampant and they need to reign it in somehow. Remaining silent for months would certainly worry me, so having mini (micro) directs is fine by me. We'll get a major announcement when they have one. That's my opinion.

Boom. Look at it this way- the Mini Direct is the best thing NIntendo has done since Animal Crossing for these reasons.

Saying that Direct was the best thing since Animal Crossing sounds like a scathing review of Paper Mario than praise for the Direct:

@jump Eh, I almost posted ‘since Origami King’, but I know that game has mixed reviews and the Mario Remasters would be better, so... yeah.

I dunno how an 81 Metacritic score is mixed but okay.

The thing I’ve come to realise recently is that you don’t need a Direct for the big Nintendo games. People are going to go to YouTube to view the next Breath Of The Wild 2 trailer or Advert for a Mario Collection. What a Direct is really good for is tying other game trailers and adverts to the goodwill for those big games. Would Splatoon have made such an impression if it hadn’t been announced in an E3 Direct? Did Shovel Knight benefit being next to Smash announcements? Countless indies, smaller quirky games, and even lower tier Nintendo games have been a bigger deal because eyes looking for Mario and Zelda have seen them. If people are in a good mood because of something special, they’ll be more receptive to things they would normally ignore.

For me, the games in the most recent Direct were all good little announcements, but I found my attention lax on them because of the lack of big announcement- also I question if they needed to be announced now instead of waiting? The Shin Megami Tensei games are at least 6 months away if not over a year. I’m pretty sure I’ll have forgotten everything from this direct within a fortnight.

@MrGawain Well yeah, Ninty have managed to release big name games with hype for decades without the need of Directs but the Directs have a certain level of ceremony and event feel to help hype them more so and connect with fans.

The Directs (and to a lesser extent the Treehouse) are one of the few things Ninty has managed to excel at in terms of marketing in the modern industry. Just look at the frustration from fans at the lack of true Directs in recent months.