Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@Grumblevolcano The PlayStation Twitter account promotes Ghostwire Tokyo often. It's just a niche release. The Microsoft acquisition hasn't had anything to do with how much or how little Sony has advertised the game.

As for Square Enix, where are the rumors pointing towards them? There's plenty of rumors going around about a "big" Sony acquisition, but nothing pointing towards Square Enix specifically as far as I know.

Personally I hope S-E isn't acquired by either Sony or MS. If either were to happen chances are good Team Asano would be folded and all these lovely games built with Switch in mind first (Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy, etc) would dry up.
https://www.gematsu.com/2022/01/square-enix-team-asano-planni...

I think late may

Acquisitions never get leaked beforehand.

I've been thinking about the upcoming game lists from previous Switch years by the time the fiscal year investor meeting happens and everything through August that's Nintendo published has specific release dates.

• 2017 had specific release dates for ARMS and Splatoon 2 (in addition to a bunch of 3DS games)
• 2018 had specific release dates for Tropical Freeze, Hyrule Warriors, Sushi Striker, Mario Tennis Aces, Octopath Traveler and Captain Toad (in addition to a bunch of 3DS games)
• 2019 had specific release dates for Mario Maker 2, MUA3, DQ Builder 2, FE Three Houses and Astral Chain
• 2020 meeting was cancelled, Origami King turned out to be a surprise July game revealed in mid-May
• 2021 had specific release dates for Famicom Detective Club, Miitopia, DC Super Hero Girls, Game Builder Garage, Mario Golf Super Rush, Skyward Sword HD

So I think if there's an August game, its release date will be revealed over the next 2 weeks.

@westman98 Sometimes they're leaked like Sony's acquisition of Bluepoint and Housemarque was leaked by Playstation Japan twitter revealing a Playstation Studios banner with those 2 studios present.

So in the space of 10 days we've gotten:

• New Three Hopes trailer
• New Xenoblade 3 trailer and July 29th release date confirmed
• New Splatoon 3 trailer and September 9th release date confirmed

I'm becoming increasingly convinced there won't be a general Direct until September and instead there's the return of Partner Showcases with some game specific Directs like Xenoblade 3 and Splatoon 3 in between. Then in the September Direct, new hardware is announced.

@Grumblevolcano I feel like new hardware getting announced won't happen for a while, given how hard it is to produce current hardware.

Also, I'd say we're most likely to just keep on getting these sorts of announcements, since NIntendo probably was going to put them in their e3 direct, but then decided to just release them all as stand-alone announcements given that e3 isn't happening this year. I feel like there's a possibility of us getting another BotW 2 trailer soonish due to this.

@VoidofLight Xenoblade announcement probably would have still come before E3 considering how soon it's releasing. They might have waited till then on the Splatoon one though.

@BenAV That is true. Xenoblade 3 only has about 3 more months until it's set to release.

My theory is Nintendo are making these announcements to change the subject from being named in a workers rights complaint. When it gets really bad they will finally release Mother 3 in the West to distract people!

Nintendo's 2021 fiscal year financial briefing is also incoming, and I'm sure they want to give their shareholders some more concrete release dates.

I'm still not seeing how any of this reconfirms a summer "E3-esque" Direct.

@westman98 It doesn't reconfirm an e3 direct. If anything, it probably makes one less likely, since it seems as if they're dumping a ton of announcements onto us separately, when usually these would be saved for a proper direct.

@VoidofLight I think the announcement timing is connected to the May investor meeting (fiscal year earnings is on May 10th). With mobile seemingly disappearing and NSO Expansion Pack subscription numbers likely being disappointing, I think Nintendo will try to impress the traditional way (namely the hardware + software angle) while showing signs of NSO Expansion Pack value improvement.

Given the NSO maintenance on Tuesday morning, I think Monday's announcement will be something NSO related.

@Grumblevolcano Eh... Again though, they can't really announce new hardware if there's no chips to make said hardware. I don't think Nintendo is dumb enough to do something only to appease investors, and not have consumers get their hands on the systems. Scalpers will just take all of the systems and jack up the prices.

@VoidofLight By announcement timing I was referring to the recent trailers. While I do think Nintendo's projections for April 2022 - March 2023 will hint at new hardware, I don't think it'll be announced until September because if they did announce it in the coming weeks then current Switch sales would suffer.

& their new hardware wouldn't be as affected, presumably.... Along with things might be improving by then We'll have to see

@VoidofLight
Nintendo still needs to announce new games, which is main purpose of general Nintendo Directs. Announcing release dates for already-announced games is something that can be done via simple YouTube trailers.

@Grumblevolcano I'm not even saying that they'll announce it in the coming weeks, but it being announced at all this year is fairly slim in my eyes, unless Nintendo somehow can poof more chips into existence.

@westman98 I mean, they've dropped simple trailers for new games in the past.

@westman98 Whether the focus is on already announced games or unannounced games depends on what's already been announced. For example, BotW 2 was the only unannounced Nintendo published game revealed in the E3 2019 Direct but that's because the vast majority of the 2019 lineup was announced in February 2019 (a few games were announced prior to that month).