Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@jump it would be interesting to hear the view of someone in the industry who works in marketing. For the bigger 1st party games, to me I think doing individual announcements has some logic to it. Combine that with partner show cases and nindies for games which couldn't generate enough hype on their own and that could be how Nintendo plan to do stuff in the future.

Of all the games we think are in development, which do we think would benefit from a Direct rather than a shadow drop?

BOTW2
Odyssey 2
Mario Collection
Mario 3D World
Metroid Prime Trilogy
Metroid Prime 4
Splatoon spin off
Pikmin 3
Pikmin 4

@MarioBrickLayer I don’t like that question, my favourite part of the Directs is thinking it’s nearly finished and then they bust a nut to show off a surprise big title. Whilst Zelda, Mario etc are more than capable of having just a trailer release to garner attention but when they sneak them into the Direct is the most exciting option for me.

I think Directs are great to, having all those announcements packaged up is exciting! I hope they get back to doing them, I'm just speculating that I don't think they will. I think there are reasons for them not to, but it would be good to hear from someone who works in Marketing to get their view.

@MarioBrickLayer what exactly are you expecting to hear?

Most marketing departments at companies I've worked for are largely responsible for organizing events, ensuring consistency with branding, social media, overviewing marketing material being made etc whilst the actual strategy of the marketing (who to aim it at, when to do it etc) is normally decided by the directors board with input from the marketing department.

@jump I'd like to understand the perspective of an individual Nintendo game announcement vs a Direct. If Paper Mario had been part of a Direct would they expect some of the hype to be lost in the noise about other releases? If they can demonstrate a game gets more hype and coverage as a stand alone announcement then they might not do 1st party directs anymore. They should be able to report on that by looking at social media, search results, number of articles etc.

I would expect the marketing director to set the strategy of how they market their products? with board approval/sign off?

I agree with @jump. I love Directs. There's just something special about them... it's like Christmas.

Going back to this Direct, I just still do not understand what the hell the point was. What is Nintendo doing? I had low expectations, but it was just nothing.

They could have made it so much better too and with ease (although I don't know what's going on behind the scenes). Seriously, if they had just added No More Heroes 3, Crysis (saving the couple of trailers released the other week for this Direct), Bravely Default 2 and Doom Eternal, then I think people would have been more forgiving of it. Especially if it was topped off with a Mario collection announcement.

Either Nintendo is in big trouble and they literally have nothing or they're staggering announcements and Directs. If it's the latter, I don't think the strategy is working.

One has to wonder pre-Covid what their plans were and, in particular, what they were going to do at E3.

@Reprise I agree with you both, I love Directs too and hope they continue, but I just have this doubt that they will.

Only time will tell if they are in trouble or not. Nintendo have always been cautious and have often sat on finished games. This could be trouble, a new communication strategy or just them being cautious...

@Reprise It may just be they aren't capable of organizing themselves quickly enough during the virus. There's stories about Japan in general struggling with working from home. One example I heard was someone had to commute 2 hours to get to the office just to use the fax machine for a signed document and then commute 2 hours back. Whilst Japan are very tech savvy workplace formalities are stuck in the past. I've experienced similar things whilst working from home but not that silly.

If that is the case they should let the US/European teams handle the directs for the time being, they have access to the games already, translators etc. There's been stories in the past that Ninty keeps US on leash and sees them more as a distributor than a branch so maybe that's it.

Part of the problem with these mini third party Directs I feel is that they will be relying heavily on third party publishers and developers to put together trailers, in some cases, in multiple languages in order to be shown worldwide and that may not be doable with the way the pandemic have likely affected some companies. Marketing does seem to be the hardest hit in the industry as a whole, that's evident by how long it has taken many to get pre-recorded streams organised as a replacement to E3 and how Microsoft struggled to put together their May Xbox Series X broadcast that came across like was done by amateurs when compared by Sony. So it perhaps explains why Japan has games showcased that were skipped in the West.

@Slowdive That maybe true, but the problem is which leakers are using actual true insider knowledge and which are making things up and getting away with because "it sounds plausible"? Also how do we know the Nintendo insiders aren't themselves making these things up, or at least some of the things? That is why I do not trust rumours no matter who it is that says it or how accurate they appear to have been in the past.

That seems more like him trying to distance himself from the leaks after how shoddy the last week or so has been.

@MarioBrickLayer If we're talking games that would benefit from a direct, the rumored 2D Metroid is one. Probably whatever GoodFeel is working on as well. Heck, 51 Tabletop Games never would have spread like it did without a direct.

If you take a big release like Paper Mario, I wonder how many people knew about it before it was announced?

I don't know how much production (printing + cartridge creation) is outsourced or in house and how long it takes.

I also wonder how much notice the major retailers want so they can plan their year and work on their financials etc

@Slowdive I know the people on the internet are not Nintendo employees themselves, I worded that badly in the my previous message. What I was saying is that there's going to be so many people making things up online that anybody with genuine information will automatically be drowned out or just outright not believed. In addition, who is to say that the Nintendo employees themselves are telling the truth or even know everything themselves. Chances are that even things the Nintendo employees may know is happening, could still turn out to be false simply due to how Nintendo is known to shelve finished games for months or years, and sometimes things just get cancelled or moved around. The whole insider.leaker thing is so messy that it is far easier to just not believe any of them.

Table top games is a good shout.

There is so much type around Metroid, I wonder how much coverage it would get if they shadow dropped a 2D game?

The gap between announcement and release for retail games is 2+ months so don't expect any unannounced games releasing before late September at this point. At this point I think Nintendo's counting Lego Super Mario as the August release, then we get Bravely Default II in September and then the holiday titles are announced in a late August or early September Direct.

To be honest that applies to yourself too, you were posting a load of rubbish from other sources on here.

@Slowdive But that's the hard part because as we have seen, even though the recent Direct was correctly leaked, all the details surrounding Mario didn't happen. So we have to ask, was everyone just jumping on the same bandwagon and actually didn't know what was actually coming out, or have things been moved around internally and even the Nintendo employees didn't know what was actually coming out? Its why I just don't believe any rumours.

@Slowdive Either way you're enabling the likes of 4chan and the other fakers

We'll never know, but it would be interesting to know if Nintendo planned for the 20th July Direct to be more substantial and changed their minds for whatever reason (and the leaker had older info), or if there have been two leaks (1. the Mario games and 2. the Date of the direct) and people have connected them together.