Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@Grumblevolcano Perhaps they are waiting for the Nintendo Direct? Makes sense to me.

Things we could see for the expansion pack at the Direct:

• some sort of road-map for the rest of 2024
• DLC for a game (Most likely Mario Wonder, Pikmin 4 possibility)
• small eShop game for free (Kirby Dream Buffet or something similar) (pretty unlikely)
• A small batch of N64 Rare games? (DK64, DKR, Banjo-Tooie)

That will annoy me so much if they do; everytime they put DLC on expansion pack it makes me want expansion pack less and also makes me want the DLC less. I just hate the idea of renting DLC for a game I own.

@FishyS Yeah personally I’d prefer to own my DLC as well (although most of my favorite games don’t get DLC so I rarely get DLC in the first place). It’s nice for those who have a game but don’t want to pay extra for DLC if they’re afraid to try it. I probably wouldn’t of tried the Splatoon 2 DLC if it weren’t for the expansion pack (which I never beat because I wasn’t too interested)

I’ll be happy as long as the DLC is purchasable separately.

If Switch 2 is releasing next year. If this is the final Switch OG Direct (I personally think that will be in September(ish.)) I hope Nintendo go out with a bang. Sure, if there are a truck ton of remasters / remakes, then fine. DK, Star Fox, F-Zero. There are so many franchises that they should be hocking to the largest audience they have had in years. But what I really hope is they have a swansong or three for the latter half of the year / beginning of next. Not going to even guess what that could be...buuut as is tradition for just about every Direct ever, hope we see Prime 4.

What I will say is it's easy to let the talk of delays etc muddy the waters. So I'll just carry on regardless and expect something big. But if the rumours are true and stuff has indeed been pushed back, then we could be getting some break glass in case of emergency type reveals. Localisation of Mother 3 or something. We got the original Earthbound and mini consoles while Nintendo were treading water last time. Maybe they have some nice things too.

I don’t know why but I have been craving a new Nintendogs lately. If we are truly in the final year (I am expecting the successor to launch late next year) then it’s a good time to pull dormant but formerly popular franchises out the hat…or I just would like a new Nintendogs lol. My purchase backlog has gotten pretty large so while I am looking forward to the Direct for new info, I’m not expecting to want to buy anything for a while.

I don't own Splatoon but I never bought the Mario Kart or Animal Crossing DLC because it was in expansion pack. I figured if Nintendo ever convinces me to buy expansion pack I would have wasted my money if I buy the DLC beforehand. But expansion pack has still never had enough stuff to tempt me.

I'm very curious what Nintendo's long term plan is with expansion pack.

@Ryu_Niiyama I would have thought Nintendogs would be a perfect game for AI.

@FishyS Makes sense. I like owning it, so even if I did get expansion pack I’d be tempted to get the DLC just to keep it.

Yeah I feel like the Expansion Pack is dying pretty quick. They’re not adding many games that frequently. Sega Genesis seems like it will barely get new games. N64 also has most major games. GBA still has some games like Nightmare in Dreamland, but not much. Perhaps with Switch’s successor we’ll see GameCube and eventually DS?

My attempt at throwing some predictions at the wall:
Wind Waker HD: Will keep saying it until it happens

Switch Sports 2: Probably some groans for this but one of the Midori codenames does seem to imply something related to Switch Sports. And as much as it didn't meet expectations it still sold 13mill units. It's also very much the sort of title you'd expect to appeal to people who won't line up for Switch 2 anyways so I could imagine Nintendo intending to do this even if the Switch 2 had been this year

I feel like the play here would be to release an expanded Switch Sports for retail that includes the original and the DLC. Pull the original from shelves (which they seem to already be doing). Then make the DLC part of NSO+. The more I think about this one the more likely I think it is

Metroid Prime 4: My personal view is still that it'll be a cross-generation release that comes out after Switch 2. And if that's what it is then I don't think we should expect it in the June Direct. However there is a non-zero chance that they do show it and with it being the biggest elephant in the room it's worth a shout

Donkey Kong: It's been a good while since we had new DK and if Prime 4 is just sitting around waiting for Switch 2 to happen then I think there's space for Retro to pull out some DK. And even if they aren't on it it's not like there aren't other studios who could give it a go, especially if it's a remaster. Probably not an entirely new release but I think something like a remake of DKCR isn't a bad bet

Non-Prime 4 Metroid: With Prime 4 probably being 2025 I think there's space to build up some hype. Metroid Prime 2/3 remastered being the easy pick but I personally would rather see Samus Returns getting the full Metroid Dread tier remaster, and I think it would make sense given the original disappeared on 3DS post Switch launch and Dread did so well

NSO: Almost guaranteed there will be something for NSO this year. It's basically a free announcement that doesn't really require any development time to get out the door. Of course they want to pace NSO content but (looks at the calendar) there is plenty of space here

I've said a few times I think this is the year to do Pokemon on NSO and I still think that. Others have said digging into the Rare back catalogue or even, after hell freezes over, Mother 3. All possible I guess, plenty of internet breakers just bellow the surface. But I also feel like there's potentially room for them to drop a new console onto NSO. And the more I think about it the more I think DS is the play

Something Else: A bit of a cop-out to put wildcard in a list of predictions but here we are I guess. But yeah, I think there's a whole range of things that are possible but there are just too many to list. They could do a remake of Kid Icarus Uprising, they could come out with a Wario Land. Maybe they pull some random new IP out of nowhere that's either small or experimental enough that it makes more sense to release it on Switch before Switch 2 steals the show. If we're being honest, probably another Kirby, there's always a Kirby

It’s June, that means it’s Direct month!

I still think we’re getting one on/around June 12 Luigi’s Mansion 1 HD (release now) and Metroid Prime 4 (October release)

Just give me Prime 2 with the same quality as the Prime 1 remaster and I'll be happy. I don't need anything else.

Now we get to endlessly anticipate for the next 2-3 weeks until Pyoro tells us the date 😛

@FishyS I’m sure we’ll here from Pyoro about a week from now. Possibly longer depending on when the Direct is.

Pyoro usually gives us near a week warning, so my 2-3 week guess is assuming the direct is near the end of if the month like it was last year

@FishyS I would think that it’d be late June, but Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD makes me think it’s probably 1-2 weeks before it releases. I’d say more of 1-2 weeks for Pyoro

@PikminMarioKirby tbh, the relative little hype and information we are getting about Luigi's Mansion compared to TTYD combined with the $60 price tag confuses me.

@FishyS It is so weird. We’ve known about LM2HD about a year now, but there have only been a couple trailers. It makes sense that TTYD got more marketing since it’s a bigger project and to most people is essentially a brand new game, but LM2HD comes out in a matter of weeks and there hasn’t really been a huge marketing push yet. We’ll probably see it at the Direct and then it’ll probably get an overview trailer, but the marketing is still very odd.

@PikminMarioKirby @FishyS They may put a 5 minute segment in the Direct, like what they did with Pikmin 4 last year.

@Grumblevolcano This is just a port/remaster, not sure they’d have a 5 min trailer for this. I think 3-4 minutes would make more sense. And then follow up with ‘while you wait, here’s the original Luigi’s Mansion!’ thing (similar to Pikmin 1+2 for Pikmin 4 last year)

@Novamii It’s so weird they chose Dark Moon. Even in US they switched the name to Luigi’s Mansion 2. That’ll confuse the casual gamers, they’ll probably be like ‘there’s Luigi’s Mansion 2 and Luigi’s Mansion 3. Where’s Luigi’s Mansion 1?’ That’s why I’m predicting a shadowdrop at the Direct.

Paper Mario TTYD made sense since it was highly requested, rare/expensive, and it made more sense than the other Paper Mario entries: PM64, like you said, is on NSO and Virtual Console. Super Paper Mario often uses Wii gimmicks and is less rare than TTYD. Sticker Star/Color Splash were a bit controversial in gameplay and characters and plot and battle engine, and Origami King is already on Switch

I wouldn’t say no to a PM64 remake, that game is also one of my favorites.

@Novamii Considering almost 2/3rds of all Luigi's Mansion Sales have been on Switch, most people already started in the middle of the series. I wonder if their decision to go with 2 was the fact that they ported 1 once already and it sold almost nothing. And of course Dark Moon originally sold twice what the first game did.