Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Pay attention to the games releasing next year. All ports and remakes/remasters, with only one new game made by Nintendo. We don’t have the back half’s titles yet, but you can’t just tell me in good faith that nothing is off about next year’s line-up. That nintendo might be done making big blockbuster titles for the console after TotK and Mario Wonder.

@VoidofLight I have no idea how big a deal Princess Peach's Showtime is. Thousand Year Door is going to be popular. I'm not going to sit here and say stuff looks low effort. Far from. I will concede that it's possible Nintendo are saving up their new ideas for later but first half is certainly prolific enough to still be all in on Switch currently (which is fair enough.) Guess we'll see what the next Direct brings.

@GrailUK The closest comparisons we have are 2020 and 2023.

2020

• January - Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore (announced in September 2019 Direct)
• March - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX (announced in January 2020 Pokemon Direct), Animal Crossing New Horizons (announced in September 2018 Direct and given a release date at E3 2019)
• May - Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition (announced in September 2019 Direct and given a release date in March 2020 Direct Mini)
• June - Clubhouse Games (announced in March 2020 Direct Mini)

2023

• January - Fire Emblem Engage (announced in September 2022 Direct)
• February - Metroid Prime Remastered (shadow dropped in February 2023 Direct), Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe (announced in September 2022 Direct)
• March - Bayonetta Origins (announced at Game Awards 2022)
• April - Advance Wars 1+2 (announced at E3 2021, most current release date given in February 2023 Direct)
• May - TotK (announced at E3 2019, most current release date given in September 2022 Direct)
• June - Pikmin 1+2 (shadow dropped in June 2023 Direct), Everybody 1-2-Switch (randomly announced in June 2023)

The thing that's most unprecedented is giving LM2 a Summer 2024 release window in September. The normal strategy would be that the game wouldn't have appeared at all in the September Direct and then given a precise release date in the first Direct of 2024.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah, I'm not getting dragged into folk's percieved quality of the announcements, but my gut tells me they were unusually forthcoming with them. When a new system is in the pipeline (a successor I mean) I do feel like we usually know the road map for the current system. Which for me feels like what they are doing. Again, happy to be wrong

@GrailUK For remake standards, TTYD is big.. but it isn’t like TotK big or even Mainline Mario big. Princess Peach isn’t going to most likely be a massive console pusher either.

@GrailUK
It's definitely the end of the road for the original Switch, I don't know how people are still debating it. They've shown us everything that remains, excepting perhaps the Metroid Prime 2 remaster shadow drop just like they did with the first one. 2024 is the last year for Switch. If the successor doesn't come out holiday of 2024, it's coming out March of 2025, no later, though personally I hope they don't flog the horse for that long. I think we'll get an announcement Direct around (what used to be) E3 time.

This has been an insane system. It's quite possibly my favorite of all time, slightly edging out the SNES, but the SNES also has my childhood nostalgia surrounding it so it's tough lol But seriously, the Switch is, in my opinion, the greatest gaming console of all time. The game selection, the hybrid form factor... it just totally rocked and catered to every gaming audience. It has been pure genius. I feel like my years with the Switch sort of revitalized my love for games.

But it's time for the next thing. I've said it a million times, and others have mentioned the handheld market in general booming: The Switch successor needs to do more than just a power increase. I really do think they need to go back to a dual-screen form factor like the DS. It would leverage them above other handhelds like the Steamdeck and Ally, and Nintendo (and even many third parties) blew the roof off innovation with DS and 3DS games, and I'm sure that's a well that hasn't been fully tapped. Keeping the TV connection would be tricky, honestly, but hey - that's why I don't work in R&D lol

@VoidofLight I dunno. I reckon Showtime is going to surprise folk. If it's anything like WarioWorld then I'll probably get it, but I think it will be popular with a young female audience as opposed to the hardcore gamer.

@rallydefault One thing that surprised me (hey, I'm old) was the current generation given the choice between a laptop and an iPad, they chose iPad. Like 100%. Not even close. So the more Nintendo embraces a tablet type environment as opposed to a a bulky handheld PC, they are on to a winner.

Presumably we'll get TTYD release date in the February direct. I feel like the release date will depend a lot on whether a new console is coming out. If there is no new console in 2024, having it late year might be better to spread it out from Mario RPG (and the other upcoming Mario universe games), but if there is a new console I would want to have the game release well before the end of the year so it isn't a distraction and so people actually buy it (nothing against TTYD but it wouldn't be an exciting day-1 release for a new console).

As for Peach Showtime, hard to predict how popular it will be but I'm really hoping Nintendo double downs on it and goes on an advertising binge. I'm really hoping for huge success and a new ongoing sub-franchise. It's definitely the 2024 game I'm looking most forward to.

They just gave us Gen IV Remakes a few years ago, so it has to be Gen II Remastered games.

@LinkxPeach The decision to re-remake Gen 1 (Let's Go) was all about taking advantage of Pokemon GO popularity and it came at the height of making the most of Joy-Con functionality. Things are different nowadays like there's the odd game here and there which uses the Joy-Con to its full potential like WarioWare Move It but the vast majority of the time the Joy-Con could be permanently attached to the Switch and no value is lost.

So because of this change in circumstances, I think Gen 5 remakes are a lot more likely than Gen 2 re-remakes at this point.

@LinkxPeach if you play the indigo disk dlc for SV, its clear that gen 5 is up next. Gamefreak is dropping their pattern of a remake every 2 gens.

Hell, at this point I don’t really even think we’ll get a remake of gen 5 as much as we’ll be getting some sort of sequel, given there’s a few text lines that could be referencing additions to the PWT.

Well, 2026 isn't set in stone. 2028 would work too. Not that I put much stock into silly internet rumours.

The Wii U release meant the transition from a system with an install-base on 100,000,000+ to a system with an install base of 0 (which slowly crept up to 13.5 million over the following 5 years). Another year or two of Wii games (while also making sure the new system was actually ready for release and marketed properly) would've done them better.

Third parties are the icing on the cake, not the main course. 80% of software sales are first-party, and software (not hardware) is where all of the profit comes from. If there's a way to make money off of Monster Rancher or whatever on Switch, they'll find a way to make it work. Hogwarts Legacy plays and sold very well on the Switch, despite all of the stupid PS1 Hagrid memes (though someone that gets news only from ResetEra would have no way of knowing that). What the Switch has, that the Wii U never did and the next system won't have for many years (if ever), is an install base of 132,000,000 and counting.

Ok, I'll say it. The Switch and PS5 are the same generation. The Wii U was an 8th generation console, but it was succeeded by the Switch in 2017 (5 years after its release). This axiomatically makes the Switch a 9th gen console. Console generations have never been all about hardware power; the PS1 was underpowered relative to the N64 and the Wii was the only 7th gen console without obligate or facultative HD.

@Euler Ehhh.. I'm not saying that Nintendo is going to fully axe support of the Switch by dropping a new console. They'll probably support it like the 3DS, where it still got a couple of games while they were trying to get people to jump to Switch. The thing Nintendo really needs for the next console in order to get it to sell is marketing that isn't confusing and games that people will actually want to buy the next console for. That's the reason why the Wii U failed. The marketing being abysmal and the lack of system pushing games. Sure, they had a 2D mario, but people were sort of tired of New Super Mario Bros.

Few posts here I think it's worth responding to. These ideas just don't die despite it being blindingly obvious that we're building up to new hardware. There's certainly enough smoke. First one's first:

It is, but the Switch isn't competing against the PS5 or historical sales records. The Switch staying on the market with no new hardware is competing against the potential for sales if they were to release new hardware. Switch sales peaked in 2020 and have been in steady decline since

Switch isn't the best selling platform and hasn't been for a good year. But more importantly the current trajectory would have it selling worse in 2025 than pretty much any new platform would be in the first year. Of course there's risk involved in any generational transition but when you're looking at falling sub 10mill in a year or so and every platform outside of the Wii U, Vita and XBox Series has cracked 10mill in a year at some point? The risk reward ratio is pretty good for new hardware

As others have said, this is complete revisionism. The Wii U failed for a combination of reasons and it's FAR more complicated than saying it was just "too early". You have to also factor in what it was, what it was trying to do, what options consumers had, how their development team transitioned, how the market reacted etc

If we're talking whether the Wii U was "too early" or "too late"? I'd argue it was both. It was too late for a HD Wii. Especially if you consider how long it took to get staples like Mario Kart, Zelda, Mario, Smash. Wii sales peaked in 2007/08, 360/PS3 sales peaked in 2011. People were ready to move on from the Wii to a HD console, the Wii U wasn't really ready with software to catch those users until late 2013. And by that point they were going up against GTA5, The Last of Us and the launch of the PS4/XBOne. Wii HD ideally should have launched with Skyward Sword and Wii Motion Plus in 2010

Was it also too early? Well yes, I would argue it was also too early in some respects. Fundamentally the Wii U was an attempt to merge development of their portable and non-portable games. Reducing development effort. The problem is, in 2012 you couldn't build a portable console that was decent enough to plug into a HDTV. Also ARM didn't scale up and X86/PPC didn't scale down. That came later and was what eventually happened with Switch.... but the Wii U was too early for that, that hardware wasn't possible in 2012. They should have delayed their first attempt at a hybrid console until at least 2015

Of course, the Switch isn't at all in the same position so the comparison is pointless anyways. New hardware wouldn't be "too early" in the same way it was with the Wii U because, well, the Switch already exists. What new hardware development are we waiting on? And as for it being too late? Well, I wouldn't say it's too late.... yet.... but the landscape is certainly starting to move in the portable space. If they sit on their hands for too long they could find themselves behind the curve like they were with the transition to HD

Honestly, I'm not even sure what you mean by this. Of course yes, there's a whole section of the population these days (especially kids) who will go with phones and tablets over laptops and desktops. But I don't see how this applies to the portable gaming space

I mean sure, compared to the Switch the Steam Deck is relatively bulky. But where is that line? What would happen if Valve came out with a Steam Deck Mini with a more power efficient SoC in a slim design? It's certainly a possibility. There's nothing fundamentally stopping them. If the Steam Deck was suddenly in the same form factor as the Switch Lite would it then immediately be a serious competitor?

Maybe you'll come back and say no, it's the software that is the difference. Maybe you might argue that the reason people go for phones, tablets and consoles over PC is because PCs are open platforms. Which is overwhelming and complicated. And sure, that's certainly true. But what if someone comes out with something that's a bit more user friendly? Hell, I'd argue that's precisely what Valve has been attempting to do. Hell, it's literally what XBox is

But I think the point @rallydefault was trying to make was broader than this. It's not about the Steam Deck or any other device specifically. It's more about the fact that the handheld space is fairly vibrant ATM. Whether it's at the high end with devices like the Steam Deck or at the low end with cheap Chinese emulation devices. People aren't short on options other than Switch. And with an aging device and plenty of other options available? Sales can only really continue to decline

Seems only sensible to come out with something new

Also to add one last thing to this discussion. When we're talking about new hardware we are, again, not talking about what will be on the market immediately at launch. We're not talking about whether or not Nintendo can survive another year or another two years not releasing something new. I'm very confident they could do pretty well in 2024 with just some HD remakes and Metroid Prime 4. That's a solid year right there.... but that's not what we're talking about here

The risk for Nintendo is what happens in the medium term. I think there's a real possibility of something like a Steam Deck 2, Steam Deck Mini, XBox Portable, Apple GameBox or something else entirely in 2025/2026. Something that could be a serious mainstream portable competition for Nintendo. I don't think any of these devices necessarily "beat" Switch 2 but I think they will drain some sales. And I think Nintendo is better placed in the medium term if they get out ahead of that. People are going to prefer an established platform if it is available, Nintendo wants to close off that window

It's not about winning some "console wars", having the "best specs" or anything like that. It's all a game of minimising risk and maximising profits. And I think at this stage there are serious risks on the horizon they can mitigate by getting new hardware out ahead of it. And equally there are more net-sales in the short but more importantly in the medium term that they would gain from new hardware

If Gen V Remakes is likely to happen, it will be on Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo is still planning on making Gen II Re-remakes.

We’ll be getting Gen X sequels, Gen II Re-Remakes, and Gen V Remakes. What does PWT stands for?

Nintendo has put out well over 20 distinct devices so I still claim it is a bit arbitrary to say there has been precisely 9 generations. Switch is, afterall, a portable. However that may be an argument for linguists and game historians so I will happily be over-ruled. Regardless, if you do consider Switch and PS5 gen 9, Switch is an example of Nintendo doing extremely well by putting out a new console of a generation significantly earlier than the other companies did. By that logic, I don't know why Nintendo wouldn't try to repeat their win and put out a new console ASAP. I don't think Nintendo is using that exact logic, but I do think they will want to try to stay ahead of the curve in their own niche as Skywake said.

@FishyS
Console generations in general are a bit of an artificial construction. When you actually stop and think about it a lot of them don't really make much sense, especially in some regions. For example the SNES released in 1992, only 3 years before the Playstation (1995) here. Then the PS was only a couple of years before the N64 (1997) which in turn was only a couple of years before the Dreamcast (1999)

I mean, when you think about it, what made the Dreamcast part of the same generation as the original XBox? Why is the original Playstation not thought of as a late competitor to the SNES/MegaDrive two horse race? They all competed with each other in exactly the same way that the Switch competes with the PS5 now or the Switch competed with the 3DS at launch. They all overlap and melt together

Makes even less sense these days than it did back then because we don't have the same kind of obvious "generational leaps" and console makers differentiate on form/power consumption. For example the Wii, internally and visually, had more in common with the "generation" that started with Dreamcast. Rudimentary online features but a maturation of 3D visuals for a standard definition output. But of course it was selling in an entirely different time. If something like the GC was that far behind the curve in its time... well, we did have one of those... it was called the GBA