Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@Anti-Matter It's all subjective, dude. No need to belittle and make assumptions about people just because they don't like all the same things you do.

@FragRed Most people are not excited about most indie games until they come out so I fail to see the problem? Especially since half of the major indie games that miss out on Nintendo then later get ported to and sell well on Nintendo.

But I will say that its been much harder to get immediately excited for the indie directs the past couple of years, as much of the games kinda become one giant blob of "things I'll probably never get around to". Which is a shame because a decade ago, a lot of them would've gotten more hype and stood out more but when there's 1000 indie games vying for attention, "good" doesn't always cut it.

But this was actually better than some of the recent ones anyway. At least some of them stood out to me and one of the games I've played before and another is a sequel to a game I loved so...more excited than usual tbh.

The trouble i have with the Nindie scene is that, upon reveal, very few of them wow me. There's usually plenty that catch my eye and I make some sort of mental note to keep tabs on it, look for reviews etc. but then they release and... I very, very rarely buy them straight away. The reason being, they tend to avoid Day 1 physical releases, and usually don't even reference plans for a physical release at all. And I never pay more than £10 (usually wait til they're sub-£5) for a digital purchase. So the reality is usually that I see a new indie and just assume it'll be ages before I can play it. Instant hype killer.

It is really hard to say what the status of a Direct is right now. The rumor mill isn't really going, and what has been said indicates one could maybe air in late May or early June, with Nintendo reportedly readying a prominent marketing campaign for Metroid that'll presumably build up to Metroid Prime 4 (which could potentially mean Prime 2 and 3 remasters handed off to the co-developers of the first game's remaster will come). Still, Endless Ocean Luminous has had a story mode alluded to on its online page, but we don't really know anything more than the fact it exists, and given Nintendo's on a streak of offering demos this year, I imagine they won't pass up rolling out one for it, considering it's less conventional and could use the marketing boost. And the remake of The Thousand-Year Door has some QOL changes that still haven't been detailed, and might even have some new content (especially if it's anything like previous Mario RPG remakes). It's just really hard to say if trailer drops might cover them or not, especially in the case of the latter - not even Mario Day gave us a trailer for it.

@Novamii Endless Ocean Luminous's overview trailer just dropped with no demo in sight, so that's...something, alright

Some of us are positive and delusional! 😃 Like the people who are always expecting silksong and metroid prime 4 😝

I do find it funny how last year around this time of year everyone was also saying there would be almost nothing in second half of 2023 and then we got a flood. Personally I'm expecting a decent June Direct. Perhaps that one will have the games this year and the September Direct will just be about Switch 2 (or a mini or partner showcase with the Switch 2 direct later in Fall). Sure, this year won't be anywhere as near packed as last year with a half a dozen entries which ended up in the game awards, some in many categories. But we are getting 6 decent to quite good Nintendo games first half of year as well as a handful of great third party games. We will be getting some more good games second half of year even if the Switch 2 delay causes some gaps in the schedule.

Since you mentioned PS5... humorously, the NintendoLife discord channel was just complaining about how few PS5 exclusives exist. Maybe Nintendo fans just have super high standards because Nintendo spoils us. 😆

It's weird that after watching the Direct I came away thinking it was just OK, but I've bought one game already and wishlisted another five, so I guess it was better than I thought. That's actually more than the last 'proper' Direct (bought 0, four on the wishlist).

@Novamii Given how much Microsoft presence was in the Partner Showcase (started with Grounded, penultimate announcement was Pentiment + Rare NSO), I could see the next general Direct opening with a game that's in the next batch of exclusives going multiplatform releases from Xbox Game Studios (the initial batch of 4 ends with Sea of Thieves for PS5 on April 30th).

MCC seems like the natural next fit given it's a collection of Xbox and Xbox 360 games so would probably run very well on Switch.

@PikaPhantom I find it odd that the overview trailer said nothing about the story mode other than a menu showcasing that it exists.

The Endless Ocean overview trailer makes me skeptical of an upcoming general Nintendo Direct. If it was just a normal trailer, then that wouldn't really hinder the possibility. However, an overview trailer is commonly the last trailer a game gets (aside from short ad trailers and a launch trailer) unless it gets some advertising/dlc trailer afterwords.

So what am I saying? Well, there's 3 likely scenarios. #1 is where there is a general Nintendo Direct in April where Endless Ocean is either not there at all or just gets a short mention, I think this is pretty likely still. #2 Nintendo just waits until June for the next big presentation, or #3 where Nintendo has a game specific Direct/a mini Direct. The only game that would get a Direct that's announced right now I think would be TTYD, especially since they've confirmed new content a couple times but haven't really talked about what is new specifically. I kind of doubt it will since it's a remake and they usually don't have full Directs for those, but if it does happen it'd most likely be next week since previews supposedly come out at that point. We should at least be getting a big trailer next week for the game, which could also just be at a general Direct.

I think 1 is the most likely still, but who knows at this point. I doubt there will be any series Direct, because Pokemon will likely wait until August, Mario had the Mario Day thing last month, and other series don't really make sense to get one right now (I heard some people talking about a Metroid Direct, but that in my opinion is very unlikely because they'd probably only have Prime 4, and maybe Prime 2/3 ports, and I doubt that they can have a Direct JUST for that. If there was any more Metroid games, that could hurt the sales of them if they don't spread them out, because Metroid has a hard time selling huge anyways.

@PikminMarioKirby I don't think any of those are the most likely actually. I think the most likely is #4, we get another Partner Showcase in June and they announce a few smaller projects for the second half of the year through Twitter drops. I don't foresee enough first party content coming in the second half of the year to warrant any kind of presentation beyond a Partner Showcase, I think we're waiting for the next gen announcement for that and that's looking more like a September/Fall reveal at this point.

@Bolt_Strike Interesting. I doubt we’ll get another partner showcase, I feel like that only happens once every 2 years or so. People thought that Nintendo’s 2023 looked empty after Pikmin 4, and thought there’d barely be any more games, but then went out to reveal Mario RPG, Mario Wonder, Detective Pikachu, and Pikmin 1+2 all in the same show, and even announced 2 2024 games (LM2 and Peach Showtime) there. I could see something similar, but maybe with MP4, a new Mario Sports, more remasters/remakes, etc. Whether it be in April or June I think we’ll hear something from them, they can’t go into H2 with almost no games. Unless they want to, of course, because they are a mysterious company that’s hard to track

@PikminMarioKirby False, Nintendo had 4 Partner Showcases in 2020. It's not on a reliable schedule of one every 2 years, it's whenever they've been throw off by some kind of scheduling change and don't have 1st party games ready to show for that period.

They could in theory have a June Direct like 2023 and announce a ton of games. But there's a lot of holes and counterevidence in that theory. For one, if they had tons of stuff to show for 2H, why did they not hold a February Direct, where we typically see that? But beyond that, the rumored internal delay, their decision not to attend Gamescom this year, and their utter silence on just about everything this year, there's more pointing towards 2H being a dry spell then them suddenly having major games up their sleeve.

@Bolt_Strike I forgot about that 2020 thing, but that was also just a weird year for Nintendo, and I believe that they had plans for the e3 and then they had to change the year’s schedule.

I doubt that they have major games for H2. If any, we’ll probably just get 1 or 2. Even if Nintendo’s next console releases next year, that doesn’t mean they’re ditching the Switch.
For instance, lets look at the 3DS. Pokémon Sun and Moon And Kirby Planet Robobot came out in 2016, a year before Switch. These were some of the console’s biggest games, with very strong IP, getting both mainline Kirby and Pokemon in the same year. Pokemon Sun/Moon released pretty much less than 4 months before the Switch itself. Saying there’s no big games left in store for Switch honestly just does not seem very likely. I’d be fine if the year was kind of empty, since I’ll have TTYD, but it seems very unlikely. Nintendo probably considers Metroid Prime 4 a somewhat big release, but not a huge one. We probably won’t get something that will sell as good as Mario Wonder in H2, because that is very hard to beat. But I don’t think MP4, a new Mario Sport (Maybe baseball by Namco again), a new Kirby game (those release almost every year), a few remasters, and maybe Pokémon aren’t out of the question. Maybe even something smaller and 2nd party, similar to Another Code and Endless Ocean. They have a lot of options for this year, I think they know it’s in their best interest to continue supporting the Switch for now, especially since the next console hasn’t even been announced yet.

@PikminMarioKirby Still seems a bit optimistic and I'd have questions about all 4 of those that make me believe they're not happening this year. Mario Sports I think is better saved for next gen, it tends to sell well and they'll want some popular multiplayer games early. I'm guessing they have a Mario Tennis game lined up early for the new console. If Pokemon were going to have a new game this year, we'd know about it already. The Pokemon Day Presents is the time to announce something like that, and most likely them announcing Z-A is them saying "Hey, we're taking the year off, but this is what's coming next". Kirby could happen, but I don't think it's a main game, it's too soon for that. Kirby would probably just get an eShop spinoff. And Prime 4 is such a graphically intensive game and would benefit more from the hype of a new generation that it's probably better served as a cross gen release like BotW. So again, I'm feeling like nothing significant in this 2H lineup. They were planning to have a big blowout of Switch 2 launch games for 2H, it got delayed, and they just have scraps left.

@Bolt_Strike Kirby would definitely be a side game, although it was only about 2 years between Triple Deluxe (2014 I believe) to Robobot (2016) and even Star Allies (2018), although the 3D Kirby (Forgotten Land) (2022) was double the wait. I definitely think they are waiting for mainline for next gen. Prime 4 wouldn't exactly work as a console launch (unless it's paired with a bigger game like 3D Mario) because it wouldn't exactly be a huge console-seller compared to majority of other Nintendo's modern franchises.

I really hope Pokemon is taking a break, they need to polish their games before it releases.

Nothing is really known about MP4's graphics, it's weird to make assumptions about how capable the graphics are, but since Metroid Prime Remaster runs well, I assume it will be on par or slightly better than that.

Nintendo seems to keep games until it's a good time to release them, like Fire Emblem Engage and Metroid Prime Remaster. They likely have some backup games like that currently, and will probably release then throughout the 2nd half of this year. We could be seeing these quite a bit in a potential upcoming Direct.

@Novamii True! Yeah I think they definitely will try to do some games that they are using as backups. This is especially true if next gen really was going to come out this year

Kirby and Zelda are both 'almost every year' games so we could easily get both or maybe just one. Every time we spiral back to the 'what could Nintendo possibly do in late Switch 1 year' part of this channel's loop we seem to think of 6-8 very plausible games, so I doubt Nintendo will have trouble filling in most of the calendar.

It's worth keeping in mind that the codename of Fire Emblem: Three Houses was Iron17, while the codename of Fire Emblem Engage was Iron19. So unless "Iron18" was cancelled, then there might well be a finished Fire Emblem game - possibly the rumored remake of 4 - ready to go for this year.

Regarding ports, remasters, backwards compatibility. I think the perception would be that a remaster could well outlast a console transition as the title would already have the "smell of old" about it. They're also generally less taxing titles. Both good reasons to have the tail end of the Switch being remaster heavy

But with entirely new titles it's a bit different. The console transition is a mental barrier. Once that launch happens any title that was already on Switch is suddenly supported via backwards compatibility. It's not a new title that happens to run on the old hardware. It will gain the "smell of old"

Even if that's all purely marketing it's still a thing. So brand new titles in the second half of this year I think really risk being lost