Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Nintendo could still be doing a direct in June even if E3 is cancelled

@Bolt_Strike Nintendo's presence at Summer Game Fest has been pretty much completely nonexistent, not even some kind of "upcoming Switch games" ads like they do at the Game Awards. The closest to anything Nintendo was Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope being nominated and won "Best Switch game" at Gamescom Opening Night Live (the nominees were that and Just Dance 2022).

So if E3 2022 is cancelled it'll be a 2020 type situation where Nintendo deciding to announce stuff is solely Nintendo's decision rather than timing being decided by the existence of other gaming events.

MLB The Show 2022 is the only game I hope is announced for Switch sometime between now and late March (for a possible early April release). Every other consideration is secondary in my eyes. In my opinion, Nintendo's Q4 (January, February, and March) is already loaded. Some would say "overloaded" if you're an rpg fan.

And that only continues into April with Advance Wars 1+2 as well as 13 Sentinels.

RPGs....rpgs for everybody.

I hope my fellow Nintendo fans are ready for several months of menu-based combat here in 2022?

I'm starting to get that itch for a direct 🙃

Isn’t Summer Games Fest weird? Where they considered e3 to be apart of their showings?

@NintendoByNature Lol, same for me! I was just rewatching old directs to relive memories...it just made me crave a new direct even more 😆

@Vortexeo lol, I haven't stooped to that level just yet 😅. Maybe soon!

@Grumblevolcano Yeah, that's what I thought. Nintendo's always treated E3 as a much bigger deal and if it's gone, they have no need to attend any other events to announce their games. Everyone's constantly frothing at the mouth for the next Nintendo Direct (and this very thread shows it) and constantly giving them tons of press when they happen. Nintendo Directs ARE the event now, and they can easily deliver their news without E3 or SGF.

I don't think it'll be like 2020 though because Nintendo was struggling to adapt to COVID and that killed almost the entire year. Even if there's another shutdown, they probably won't be affected as much and we'll end up with a much healthier lineup and more Directs to announce them. Without E3 we'll probably have a similar Direct schedule to a normal year, just with a summer Direct instead of an E3 Direct, and they may not necessarily air it in June.

@Bolt_Strike I fully agree. People saying that e3's cancelation means that Nintendo will default to their 2020 plans again isn't necessarily the case. I honestly feel like Nintendo themselves won't have any troubles being heard if they just do directs, given that they were the only reason to really even watch e3 last year anyways.

Hopefully a direct isn't too far away. I could see a direct in Febuary like they did last year.

Same, I could see one next month. People are just predicting this year to be a quiet year way too early, given that January is always a quiet month for Nintendo in the first place.

People are predicting this year to be quiet despite all the games that are coming out confirmed alone?
That makes no sense..

Directs are both the best and worst thing for me specifically. They are the coolest things to get hyped about and watching them is like Christmas but multiple times a year. The UK versions even have a countdown clock on the stream, it's so good. HOWEVER. Since I live in Ireland, the broadcasts are almost ALWAYS on at ridiculous times (11pm for the last one good lord) so it can be hard to stay awake to watch them, especially considering how early I have to get up for school and work and all of that jazz. It can be draining at times. But hey, they're fun in the moment, and that's all that really matters.

Yeah, it makes absolutely no sense to me either. I get they dropped a kirby trailer earlier this month, but that doesn't confirm much of anything. Last January they dropped a trailer for Bowser's Fury, and while that's a bit of a different case, I can't see them just doing one direct in a year that's supposed to be full of new massive games, unless the games were all canceled, or all moved back into 2023.

I mean, they have to start ramping up the Splatoon 3 marketing at some point. That's probably the next tentpole 1st party title after Kirby (with Advance Wars and probably one other title in between).

Rabbids and Bayo are the only other major titles confirmed for this year besides Zelda, so they definitely need to reveal a few titles too.

February is suddenly looking a lot emptier with all these delays, we now have the KH cloud versions on February 10th and I'm not sure what else (sure there's the physical version of GTA trilogy but digital released in November). So maybe there is a chance they go with a February 2nd/3rd Direct (or at least a Partner Showcase).

@Grumblevolcano There's the Ezio Collection as well but yeah otherwise February is pretty empty. March has a whopping 4 exclusives though plus P4AU so I'm not complaining.

@Grumblevolcano I'm really hoping the physical release of GTA is a significant improvement but i'm not hopeful, I really wanted to play those games again.

My expectations for the next Nintendo Direct:

new Fire Emblem game
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
new Donkey Kong game

I have no reason to think this other than it makes sense to me, but what if the new Donkey Kong game was a new Mario + Donkey Kong 3D game? Nate the Hate and MVG have speculated that a new 3D Mario game will be released at Christmas as a tie in to the movie. Donkey Kong is also in the movie, if he's in it a lot maybe having a game with him and Mario would be a better aligned to the movie?!

Plus the Donkey Kong game is supposed to be in development with the Mario 3D team...

Pure speculation on my part, but it has the potential to be amazing!