@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.
@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.
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@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).
@VoidofLight
Let's ignore 2020 where Nintendo didn't have any standard Directs due to the start of the Covid pandemic.
The only types of games that Nintendo likes to announce outside of Directs are the blue ocean expanded-audience games like Ring Fit Adventure, Labo, or Brain Age. Assuming Nintendo has traditional titles in the works (they do), the best place to announce them are in general Directs.
I'm gonna agree with Grumble and say that the next big general Direct won't be until September.
We know Nintendo's lineup until early September, and Pokemon will be the big holiday title. They can easily have the remaining titles for the year and Bayo 3's release date revealed via Twitter, just like they did with Pikmin 3 Deluxe/Paper Mario/Age of Calamity, especially if they happen to include Wind Waker HD or a Metroid Prime remaster like rumored.
As for Sparks of Hope, that game we won't hear about until Ubisoft decides to do a presentation. I suspect it might slide into early 2023 though.
I’m pretty certain there will be a summer direct. Everything that we’ve seen announced has been basic trailers and release dates. There was no way they were gonna wait till June to announce the Xenoblade release date and more info on three hopes. Also Nintendo directs have been increasingly distanced from E3 so I don’t think it not happening this year would affect much. There will probably be either a major Nintendo direct sometime in June or July, or multiple smaller directs like a mini direct and a Splatoon direct.
According to a mix rumors, development kits are in use for the Switch 2, which has been tipped to make its debut late 2022 or early 2023. We suggest you take all this with a pinch of salt.
There's no way we are waiting until September for the next Direct. August would be a maybe, but right now? That would mean they wouldn't be unveiling whatever their big, non-Pokemon holiday title is until it was only 2 months out. Their holiday titles usually have closer to a 6 month marketing campaign.
Like, if they really didn't have a holiday title after BotW2's delay, they'd have held back Splatoon 3 to take the holiday spot, it's more than big enough to do so.
@link3710 Given NSO launched in September 2018, I think Splatoon 3 would've only launched later than September if it wasn't ready. While Nintendo is increasing the value of the NSO Expansion Pack, there will still be loads of people who didn't upgrade and have base NSO expiring in September so Nintendo needs a big online game to convince people not to let their subscription lapse which is Splatoon 3.
I think with Scarlet/Violet seemingly being the Pokemon BotW people have been clamouring for, the holiday season's focus will be Pokemon with some smaller games like Bayonetta 3 surrounding it.
@Grumblevolcano I'm not so sure. While I do still think Bayo 3 is the October game, the utterly crowded summer schedule makes it hard to believe we won't get anything major in the final four months of the years save Pokemon. I don't think Nintendo's ever had all their major cards out by February before.
@link3710 2019, the only unannounced 2019 Nintendo published games by the end of February were Cadence of Hyrule (announced in March 2019 Nindies Showcase) and Super Kirby Clash (shadow drop announcement in the September 2019 Direct).
I can't see the current lineup being all we get for the rest of the year. Nintendo usually has more than 2 first party games planned for Q4 and like @link3710 said, they usually haven't revealed everything by this point in the year, so there's likely to be at least 1 or 2 more than haven't been announced yet. And the industry seems to like announcing holiday games in late Spring/early Summer for whatever reason (they've probably determined that's the ideal time through business logic, market research, past data, etc.), so Nintendo probably won't change that despite E3 being cancelled. I don't see the next Direct happening later than July.
@Bolt_Strike I'm not saying there won't be any unannounced games, I just think they won't be big new games that need like 4-6 months of promotion. For example, Nintendo is happy enough to announce ports a few months before launch (e.g. Bayonetta 1+2 announced in December 2017 and released February 2018) so I'd guess we'd see something like Zelda remasters announced in the coming weeks for release in August, something gets announced in August for release in early October (I think Bayonetta 3 would be late October to coincide with Halloween) and something gets announced in the September Direct for release in early December. Maybe one of those ends up being Advance Wars getting a new release date though.
@link3710 Age of Calamity was their big non-Pokemon holiday title for 2020 and that wasn't revealed until early September.
@Bolt_Strike That depends on what the remaining titles are. If Zelda Wind Waker HD and Metroid Prime Remastered are the remaining games, for example, then they honestly don't need a Direct for those. A reveal on Twitter would suffice.
@Grumblevolcano@IceClimbers I don't think it's just remakes/remasters like Prime and WW/TP. I think there's at least one new game planned for Q4 2022. My money's on DK. That was rumored to be releasing in 2021, and if the rumors about DK are true I can't see them pushing it for 2 years, especially if it's just a 2D game as most of the rumors expect.
Also IceClimbers, AoC isn't really a "big" game (it's a spinoff that sells well, but not super well) and 2020 was not a normal year because of the pandemic, so that's a poor example.
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