Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Pros
The Yoshi track looks rather lovely in Mart Kart so is possibly the highlight of the Direct for me.
Baten Kaitos as I have wanted to play them before.
Pikmin 4 has a puppy.
Samba di Amigo could be awesome depending on the controls.
Advance Wars getting a release.
Anime Cop Car game looks good.

Mixed
New Layton is cool but the last one was ridiculously easy, they better sort that out or else.
Metroid Prime 1 but not 2 and 3.
New Fantasy Life but I’d imagine I’d get bored of it quickly if it’s too much like the last one.
I don’t really care about Gameboy games but cool, Mother 3 would be better though.
Ghost Trick, I didn't play the original and the clip didn’t sell it to me but I’ve heard good things.

Con
Not enough Zelda Kingdom Sad 😢
Is Splatoon 3 just getting a paid DLC hub area?!?
Lack of a big new sparkly Ninty game reveal.
No new Smash fighters!

...

Not the greatest direct in the world, but it gave me a much clearer picture of what the next six months look like on the Switch, so I'll take it. Seems like the Switch is gonna have a banger year, despite the hardware dragging its own corpse along the ground at this point. Fingers crossed games like TOTK aren't another Pokemon Scarlet.

Quite possibly one of my favourite Directs of all time. Splatoon 3 DLC, Level 5 resurrecting themselves in the west, great looks at Pikmin 4 + TOTK, Game Boy/Advance on NSO AND F******* GHOST TRICK OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD

9/10, absolutely loved it, THE GHOST TRICK IS REAAAAAAAAAAAL

Best! Nintendo Direct! Ever! 10/10! Most of the announcements like GB and GBA for NSO, DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Fire Emblem Engage, Tears of the Kingdom, Professor Layton and remasters for Metroid Prime and Baten Kaitos I & II were super awesome and hype. The one announcement from the Nintendo Direct I cared for the most was the teaser for Wave 4 of the Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Yoshi's Island as a brand new course is looking super awesome and hype and the unexpected surprise of Birdo getting added as a DLC character for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Thank you very much, Nintendo for the super awesome Nintendo Direct. I really enjoyed it

Can you guys ban this guy from the forum? Or ban his uncle?

For me its was an okay direct. Not amazing, but not awful either. Just a few small things that kept me from being as enthusiastic as you all seem to be.
I think the Metroid Prime remastered is cool, but disappointed because it also means an unlikely Metroid Collection or a GameCube virtual console. My guess is they are testing the waters to see what they can get away with and then consider doing a zelda remaster or prime 2/3. Also a $40 price tag seems high for a remaster that doesn't really look that much better then the original. Almost feels like a port to me.
The GBA addition is cool as well, but that it's part of the expansion kinda annoys me. Nintendo really milking every drop. Also the fact that they didn't announce any N64 or Genesis games is kinda crappy.
Advance Wars release date is great, but it being so close to Zelda is gonna mean it's online is gonna be dead and likely will be abandoned, like Nintendo always does with its online games that aren't Splatoon or Mario Kart.

I was hoping for a Zelda remaster or collection or a Mario party dlc, but wasn't expecting it.

@JesseA haha it was (supposed to be) just a funny quip to intro my predictions. Sorry if you didn't pick up on the hint of humor. Next time I'll mark /j for a better read.

I've waited a decent amount of time to really let the direct sink in before I spout off nonsense. So here goes...

The direct was ok. 7/10 for me.

• pikmin 4 has me interested, even though I've never played a game in the series
• the next 23-24ish minutes were pretty much a bore for me outside of the jrpg/cop game I'll never remember the name of and sea of stars.
• the dlc felt like it took up half the direct, which I'm not too crazy about.
• that ghost trick looks interesting.
• AW 1+2 is a banger, and I'm amped for April.
• Kirby I'm buying for the family, but not clamoring for it.
• the direct finally kicked into high gear with NSO. Loved seeing some GB games I can replay and show the kids. Stinks only the EP subscribers get GBA while us base subbers are living like peasants. Nonetheless, I'm down for GB games on the big screen.
• MP1R was the unannounced highlight for me. But for the life of me, I can't understand the whole deal. The pricing seems uncharacteristic of N, shadow drop of all things, and a physical in 2 weeks( which I'll patiently hold out for. I mean heck, this was teased 6 years ago I'm pretty sure, what's another 2 weeks?).
  • lastly, TotK which is my game of all games. The new mechanics, aircrafts, dune buggies, and rail skating are ALL top notch. Stinks we only got a couple minutes again. I do wish they stated something along the lines of, "stay tuned until April for a deep dive in the game." But, it is what it is.

Overall, not bad, but not great. I'll be busy with FE Engage, MP1R, and AW 1+2 all the way up until TotK, so no real complaints. Other than that, the burning question is: what the heck is going on with mario and dk titles on switch. I still can't believe how long it's been since we've played a new mario or dk experience.

Based on the games shown in this direct though, it leads me to believe we have a general direct coming in the summer. Otherwise, we wouldve been set up into September.

I'm too dense to pick up on that, sorry. You got a lot right though, so nice job.

Or it means we have new hardware coming. It's pretty sus that they didn't have a single new 1st party game announced besides the Prime Remastered shadow drop. We have literally nothing confirmed past what, July? And is there even any confirmed game left in the pipeline besides Prime 4? Even when Directs focus on a particular window for the next few months, we usually see 1 or 2 games further out, they didn't announce anything to look forward to on the Switch later in the year or for 2024 which is what we'd see if they were holding Switch games until June/September Directs. That just screams "we have nothing in the further future to show because it's on next gen hardware". Feels like we're set to hear about the Switch's successor some time in the coming months (or like, at least a tease for a full announcement in 2024).

@Bolt_Strike I'd still say we won't see anything about the successor until late this year, or early next year. Tons of game series still have to wrap up their DLC and updates before Nintendo can announce the next console. TotK is probably not going to release on both the switch and the next gen console, since they would've held back until then to announce the next gen version today most likely.

@VoidofLight
Or, to go off like a broken record again, the new hardware interacts with the existing library in a way that makes releases across both Switch and the new hardware unnecessary. i.e. if it's compatible with Switch it runs on the new hardware, possibly with more performance whether that's via software patches or otherwise. If it's a game that pushes beyond the Switch it doesn't come out on Switch. TotK was always going to be a game that releases on Switch. Will that be the direction they go? Who knows. My point is more that it's a direction they COULD go that we can't really rule out.

With that said...... I'm personally not as keen as @Bolt_Strike is to read into the tealeaves of this Direct THAT much. New hardware is definitely coming, it's always coming. And the fact that we have a fair idea of what that hardware will be which suggests it's sooner rather than later. And we can certainly make guesses on how they'll handle this transition based on industry trends, precedents and the Switch's success. But the exact when and how of it is anyone's guess. Throw a dart at a calendar, it'll be about as accurate as anyone's theories will be

@VoidofLight TotK yes, DLC updates, I'm not as sure. The DLC isn't going to interfere much with the new console because it's mainly selling to people that already bought the game, neither should significantly limit sales of the other. And if the next gen console is backwards compatible, then it interferes with it even less. Because anyone that skipped the Switch and bought the next gen console can just play the DLC on the next gen console.

I think the timeframe looks more like this:
June-September: Nintendo confirms new hardware is in development, gives us the codename and no other details
September-November: Full reveal of the new hardware, with the name, design, features, price, and teases a few games (they could randomly drop a trailer like the Switch, they could do a presentation)
By the end of January: Launch lineup is confirmed in one way or another (the presentation could happen here if it didn't happen in 2023, they could do a Direct)
Sometime in Spring 2024 (possibly March again): Hardware launches

Like some other people on here, I was sceptical that we'd even hear about a new console this year, but honestly after that Direct I can see it happening. As people have already mentioned the fact that we know of nothing coming after July or thereabouts, it seems odd.

@Budda Guess I'll eat my hat, I can't believe Jeff Grubb was right.

I dunno, I can see a logic in not going too deep into 2023. The bit I found curious was there wasn't too much info on Kingdom Sad 😪 still like they are conscious it's a mega title that will eat attention away from others and it's doesn't need hype since the little info we have gotten has folk biting already. So there’s no point announcing say Donkey Kong or Metroid Prime 4 is coming out this winter as it's impact will be diluted in the shadow of Zelda so let everyone focus on Zelda for now and then once they are done announce the big winter game so it can have more attention to it as it wont be the second headline after new Zelda.

The DLC reveal for Fire Emblem Engage was super awesome and hype. Regarding emblems, if a Laguz (a race where characters turn into animals from Fire Emblem Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, different to Beorc) character were to be an emblem, who would you choose?

Switch 2 will most likely be revealed this Summer at the Summer Direct maybe June or July, they need some Big Games if they plan on building Hype for next gen, i would love a Majora's Mask Remake or a MK Double Dash remaster !!!!

@Sir_Axeman does Nintendo really risk revealing the Switch sucessor now, considering it still selling well? we shall see if in the summer, Nintendo do a similar presentation they did with Switch to showcase it sucessor.

I'm sure there will be another new Pokemon games for this year.
Probably a remake of older games or spin off.