Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Given how there's a load of potential N64 games left, I wouldn't be surprised if GB/GBC/GBA doesn't appear until the Switch's successor irrelevant of when it releases.

On a different note, Nintendo's being oddly quiet. I though they'd be going all out with FE Engage promotion by now.

@Grumblevolcano When this month is Fire Emblem releasing? Is it because they’re doing mini shadow drop Direct perhaps in which they’ll have a trailer?

@FragRed January 20th

@Grumblevolcano So they could be planning a mini Direct for next week which is why they aren’t promoting anything yet. They could have a trailer in the Direct which will be the start of the promotion campaign.

@westman98 They seem to have moved on from the Let's Go games. It was too controversial and didn't bring in additional fans than the average game to compensate, and after seeing BotW's immense success they seem to have completely changed the direction the series took away from mobile still linear games like LGPE and SM and to more BotW-style open world games. And everything positive that LGPE did was integrated into this new direction so there's nothing further they need from that style. LGPE is probably one and done.

@Bolt_Strike
But would doing a standard (non-Let's Go) remake of Gold/Silver again be any different in terms of bringing additional fans than a Let's Go remake?

The next open-world Pokemon game will either be another Legends entry or Gen 10 so that discussion is irrelevant here.

@westman98 No, but it would at least turn less people off to the remake than Let's Go did and minimize criticism. It needs to bring in more fans than usual to justify ignoring their hardcore base, otherwise they could end up losing sales instead of gaining sales.

No, the shift towards open world is completely relevant because it's affecting all of their games, not just new generations. Aside from 1 outsourced remastery remake in BDSP, all of the Pokemon games since SwSh have been moving further and further in the direction of BotW-esque open world. Short of another major philosophy shift in their development practices, the next game will likely follow this direction as well, there's no reason to believe they'll revert back to LGPE when the fans are more or less liking the current direction in the series (aside from issues with performance) and LGPE's direction was very divisive.

@Bolt_Strike
Its worth mentioning that Pokemon Let's Go is the 2nd best-selling Pokemon remake, only behind Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, so I don't think the game really turned people off or lost sales at all.

I agree that the overall direction of Pokemon from now onward is open-world, but I don't think that applies to the remakes. Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl was even more faithful to the original than any of the prior remakes, even as Legends Arceus and Scarlet/Violet fully embraced the open-world formula.

Regardless of how (or if) Gen 2 is remade, I don't think that has any bearing on whether the original Gold/Silver (or GameBoy games in general) are added to NSO.

@westman98 LGPE is only 70,000 units higher than ORAS, so it isn't better by much and in terms of attach rate, it's actually worse. Notice that the 2 best selling remakes are Switch games, which says more about the Switch than it does about Pokemon remakes. A regular old Kanto remake would've had similar sales, probably even higher sales not getting bogged down by the casual Go mechanics, so by that metric LGPE is a failure. And if they repeat it, the sales will probably go down because the fans that bought LGPE and didn't like it won't be buying the next game.

I don't think Game Freak is interested in making more BDSP-esque remakes, at best they'll just continue outsourcing those to ILCA. I think any remake they work on is going to have some kind of Legends game or similar reimagining alongside it, that seems to be the type of remake they really want to make. But if NSO ports are a thing, they don't even need to outsource remakes to ILCA, they can just port the originals and that will serve the same purpose that BDSP did, again minus the controversy of them being glorified remasters since fans will not be expecting new content in a retro port.

@Bolt_Strike
I think you overemphasize how much the Let's Go catching mechanics hurt the games sales.

With that being said, I do think Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee benefitted from being the first HD Pokemon game playable on a TV screen. Future Let's Go entries won't have such benefits so GameFreak may not make another one for that reason, not because they believe the catching mechanics are bad.

Anyways, I dont think GameFreak will work on remakes ever again - they'll probably just develop new generation entries, DLC, and Legends titles (or if they come up with newer concepts, those too). Even if the Pokemon GameBoy titles are added to NSO, they'll all be emulated, so there will be minimal developer involvement there at best.

@westman98 Yeah, the dude is overemphasizing how the Catching mechanics hurt the sales because he personally doesn't like them, like most Pokemon fans who hate stuff about their "favorite" game series. The game sold well, and even appealed more towards the people who started with GO, however Gamefreak just figured they had no need for another, so they didn't make another. Simple as that.

@SlashFuture
Lower sales for what? Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee? That game launched a year before Sword/Shield.

Also, I dont think Sword/Shield's real world reception was really bad at all. It had a huge launch, sustained strong legs, and is the 2nd biggest-selling game in the series. The next game in the series, Scarlet/Violet, then proceeded to obliterate sales records.

@westman98 Yeah, anyone saying that Sword and Shield sold poorly baffles me. The games weren't great, but they're not as abysmal as many people made them out the be. The main issues were the dex cut (which was going to happen anyways), and then the lack of post-game stuff which is more fair.

To be honest as well, with Pokemon most of the games sell more and more as time goes on, at least in terms of big generation releases. Each game outsells the next for the most part.

@VoidofLight
I don't think Pokemon games are necessarily selling more than ever up until recently with Switch since the platform still maintains a huge playerbase and drives massive Nintendo software sales across the board.

To get back on topic regarding Nintendo Directs, Fire Emblem Engage previews just dropped.

@westman98 @VoidofLight No you're right, the Go mechanics didn't cause a drop off. The casualization of the gameplay and lack of anything else new did that too.

No but seriously, it doesn't look like it hurt sales that much, but selling about the same wasn't enough to justify continuing it. The complaints combined with general boredom would've caused a gradual drop off later on.

Whatever the case, the more relevant analysis here is the question of:
1. Would LGPE have sold as much as a typical RBY remake on Switch (like, if they made CrimsonFireRed or FernLeafGreen or something)?
2. Was Go the reason behind the sales bump or is it something else?

And while we can't 100% tell this for sure (not without access to an alternate universe where they made CFRFLG), by comparing it to what some of the other games sold before and after it, I think we have sufficient evidence to conclude "No". It sold about the same as more traditional remakes and every Switch Pokemon game has had some kind of sales bump. If it were successful at bringing in Go players, we'd likely see more than a several thousand unit difference (like, it'd probably sell closer to 17-20 million than 14.53 million) and those Go players probably would not buy SwSh, BDSP, LA, or SV because it's too complex and hardcore and doesn't play like the Go gameplay they're familiar with. That's not what happened, we saw a handful of fans that bought LGPE and stuck around for the other Pokemon games. My guess is that most of these new fans came from Xbox, Playstation, and PC and accepted LGPE but also wanted console quality games. I'm guessing that in this alternate universe where we got CFRFLG, it probably sells around the 15-17 million range, slightly better than LGPE actually did here. You'd probably lose the few Go players you have but gain players that are more interested in traditional Pokemon games that aren't mobile waggle fests. So by that metric, LGPE is a failure. They'd be better served making more games like CFRFLG and less like LGPE and so they'd decide for future games they don't need to make more Let's Go games (this kind of decision making is a crucial economic concept called opportunity cost and business do this all of the time). That's why I think Go is dead. They tried to get Go players to buy in and it doesn't look like they succeeded in growing their fanbase relative to other options, so they went a different direction and we're not going to see a game like it again.

Also westman is correct, Pokemon game sales have fluctuated from system to system. DP, for example, has outsold both 3DS new gen games. This actually seems to relate to how well the system it's on sold, because most of the weaker selling ones were on systems that didn't sell as well (namely, the GBA and 3DS, the only two sub-100 million sellers to date). The only consistent sales patterns we have are:

1. New gen games > remakes > third versions. "Remakes" also seems to include LA and "Third versions" also includes BW2. The only exception to this rule has been Yellow outselling some remakes (FRLG, HGSS, and to date LGPE but LGPE could overtake it in future earnings reports as it's only 110,00 behind Yellow)
2. The first generation on a console generally outsells the second generation on a console (i.e. 1st gen > 2nd gen, 4th gen > 5th gen, 6th gen > 7th gen. Presumably the pattern will continue with LGPE and the 8th gen games outselling the 9th gen games). I can only see one exception to this pattern with BW2 outselling Platinum.

It's definitely odd how only Japan is getting all this Fire Emblem Engage promotion. Does make me think perhaps there is a Direct Mini next week, it could cover January - June but not mention anything about TotK.

@Grumblevolcano I would be up for an January Direct. What a start to 2023 that would be!

@Grumblevolcano They could absolutely do that. I will admit that I'm never going to expect anything other than February, if at all, just to keep my expectations in check. Plus I have a really big backlog to dig into.

@Grumblevolcano I don't think they can get around not lifting the lid on TotK pretty soon. It's 4 months to release and we know almost nothing, we really need to get the goods on this game. I do think we're getting some significant news in January and February, namely the following:

-Full blowout on TotK
-DLC announcements for Pokemon Scarlet/Violet and Splatoon 3
-New games revealed for Spring/Summer, with 1 or 2 Q4 games mentioned

A full Direct and a Pokemon Presents should both be happening this month or next month, and possibly a Zelda Direct as well if they don't want to cover TotK in a normal Direct. It's more a question of when than if at this point.

Things have been quiet with FE Engage only a couple weeks out.

Figure a five minute to ten minute FE Engage-only Direct is due.

And it's out-of-pocket for their usual February Direct.