Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

The thing is... Nate aka Pyoro gives educated guesses in his latest podcast episode, but people take it as if he knows about the timings.
It is a never ending story of not being able to really listen to people.
He also never stated, that he knows it is going to be a partner direct, yet everybody speaks about it as being information he gave.
The ONLY information he gave in the ladt days regarding Nintendo is, that there will be some form of direct on 14./15.

Oh and people saying this insider stuff is like astrology... Nate (Pyoro) has been right about countless little details during the last 4.5 years.
It is fine to trust somebody being as consistent.

And people... pls pls listen carefully and give people the attention they deserve when they speak to you.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah I've been pretty skeptical about the squish of a direct and a retail first-party title days apart but this could just be another case of 'nintendo does what nintendo wants'!

@DekuDelight Out of curiosity, do you have a reason to think Nate and Pyoro are the same person? You've said that a couple times but if it is true it doesn't seem to be common knowledge considering lots of articles last Fall talked about Pyoro as a more recent leaker and compared them to several other people including Nate. I don't follow any of their accounts, I just see the second-hand info on sites like this. Pyoro is clearly actually leaking not just making educated guesses (e.g 2D Mario named Wonder with flowers and elephants) so in that sense I do somewhat trust them.

As you said, most of the current Nate comments people are talking about are clearly stated as an educated guess rather than an actual leak. As for the date I suppose it could be a leak, but anyone saying the second most likely date in Feb doesn't come off as an obvious leak.

Honestly outside of the Nvidia leak, various not-so-subtle side-confirmations and just plain old common sense? I'm not really convinced anyone has an inside track. There have certainly been bits and pieces but we really haven't had something along the lines of the Eurogamer NX article:
https://www.eurogamer.net/nx-is-a-portable-console-with-detac...

At this point I think most of the discussion is just.... educated guesses. Just some of those guesses are a tad more educated than others. I mean, all I know is that there's a huge gap between what Nintendo could be selling and what they are selling. And that the Switch has a fairly extended cycle so we're kinda due for something new. It's as simple as this really.....

Switch vs Wii and DS. Switch launch year shuffled forward so they can align a bit better given it launched at the start of the year. The 3DS launched at around 7 years after the DS launch, the year prior to this the DS still moved 20mill units. Even so, it was an aging platform and while the 3DS transition wasn't super smooth the new hardware was welcome. And the Wii's curve is..... with hindsight probably bit of a red flag showing how weak the Wii brand was going into the Wii U's launch (year 6 on that graph)

The Switch in comparison does certainly have a relatively long tail, even accounting for the COVID peak skewing the graph somewhat. But we're effectively in year 8 on this graph, more or less, and are probably looking at somewhere around 13mill units this year if nothing changes. Which is impressive for a platform as old as this but...... I can't see a world where this graph looks impressive to investors going into 2025, 2026 as some people want to believe. Switch without any assistance isn't moving 15mill units approaching 10 years after launch. It just isn't

Almost surely we get hardware this year. If we don't then I think Nintendo are at risk of repeating the mistakes of the Wii U. Which would be insanity given that this time they have a lot more time to get ahead of the falling curve. Any predictions that line up with this? Seem good enough to me

@NinChocolate
The problem with the 2025 theory is that if we get to 2025 these people will just say 2026. It's perpetually next year until it's literally in our hands. Which is easy to do from this side but Nintendo is going to have to get the ball rolling well before the thing actually lands on store shelves. It's not just a matter of "hitting print", they have to build up stock not to mention have software ready for launch

Basically they have to anticipate when the decline will bite and get out ahead of it. While at the same time they don't want to put resources into software for a platform that they don't intend to release for years

There's more than enough smoke to suggest there are Switch 2 development kits in the wild. At the very least with close partners. And at the same time it has been clear that Switch sales had past their peak since at least 2022.

I don't think it makes sense for Nintendo to get the ball rolling in 2022 and have Dev kits out by 2023 only to not release hardware until deep into 2025. It just doesn't add up

@skywake 100%. If hardware is released in 2025, it's early 2025, but even that feels late.

@NinChocolate
Yeah, honestly I wouldn't be surprised. Just threw 2023 out there because that's when we started to get reports of Dev kits in the wild and Nintendo showing the hardware behind closed doors. We're not talking late 2023, this was June. So this stuff has been out there since at least then

You simply don't put resources behind developing software for a new platform like that without an intent to "hit print" within 1-2 years. I don't see how that timeline lines up with a launch not being fairly soon at this point

I have this bad feeling that Switch 2 launching this year would result in Microsoft being able to acquire SEGA. SEGA weren't happy with October - December 2023 sales and it seems SMB Wonder is the cause, fast forward to this year and you've got a similar situation this holiday if Switch 2 does launch this year (Sonic X Shadow Generations vs. brand new 3D Mario).

@Grumblevolcano I doubt it. While Sonic isn't doing too hot, games like Yakuza Infinite Wealth and Persona 3 Reload are killing it right now for them. Not to mention on top of that, they have Metaphor coming out later this year, which will most likely cross-over with the Persona fanbase. I doubt Sega is going anywhere.

Sega are also big enough that Microsoft would need regulatory approval in Japan to take them over. That'd probably be enough to put them off, even if they were prepared to get the chequebook out.

@Matt_Barber Yeah, Microsoft being an American company would make it extremely hard to take Sega.

Huh, I guess we didn't get one on Wednesday like everyone claimed otherwise?

The last 2 years it was on the second Wednesday of the month (Feb 9 and Feb 8). Wed Feb 7 would have been close to 8,9 but it would have only been the first Wed of the month. So people were optimistically hoping Feb 7 but Feb 14 was a near second guess... or possibly 15 since directs are often Thursday also and Nintendo may want to avoid Valentine's Day. If it isn't either of those 2 days next week, pretty much everyone was just wrong.

@FishyS How is it we're trying to become prophets?

I mean... that's the point of this thread. 😝 Occasionally semi reliable leakers say things but otherwise we are just guessing while impatiently waiting for the direct. Nintendo is semi consistent with directs but throws in curveballs so it makes guessing kind of interesting.

@FishyS I try not to become one, nothing's worse than being proven wrong and people rubbing it in my face.

I embrace my wrongness. 😅 I sometimes guess the dates correctly but I have been drastically wrong about the content of the directs lately.

At this point the major thing we've got in favour of a Direct this month with February 7th/8th having already passed is the fact that for whatever reason, Microsoft chose to wait so long to do their "Business Update" event. Could be that they made an agreement with Nintendo that Direct would be the reveal of Hi-Fi Rush going multiplatform so they have to wait for after the Direct to do their event.

But I'm not holding out hope at this point, working on the principle that all we get this month is Pokemon Presents on February 27th.

@VoidofLight True, those titles did do well. It just always seems like Sonic is treated as the central pillar for SEGA so if that falls apart, the other stuff wouldn't be able to hold SEGA up.

@Grumblevolcano Honestly, I feel like Persona alone could keep Sega afloat. That series has been kicking off ever since 5, and has sold more than the last few Sonic games.

Hate to say it, or maybe not. But, sonic games just feel so generic now so it's no surprise if they put out mediocre numbers compared to persona or yakuza. Superstars was an OK game imo. I haven't played frontier yet but that didn't have the best reception did it? Glad they're bringing back all those older titles in the near future such as golden axe, crazy taxi, Shinobi, etc.