Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Not super excited for the Partner Showcase and Indie World combo, but I'll see what they've got. If there's nothing new that interests me, that's OK because I still have Zelda, Mario Party, and Mario & Luigi to look forward to.

@GrailUK Krafton isn't indie in any way. Just because they own Tango now does not mean Hi-Fi Rush will show up in an Indie World

That doesn't really make much sense as a theory. If there wasn't enough content to talk about I don't see how compressing their announcements into August helps with that. Surely if they had nothing to say they would've spread these announcements out. Pushed the Indie Direct out to October and throw the Partner Direct in September and pad it out with talk about Echoes of Wisdom or something. I don't see how this is a sign that they don't have much to talk about at all

The best theory I've heard about this is that there are inevitably some games being shown at TGS (September 26th) which will be coming to Switch 2. At this stage it would be odd of multi-platform games being developed aren't headed towards Switch 2. But until the Switch 2 is officially revealed third party devs can't advertise that. The theory goes that maybe there are some big gets at TGS and Nintendo would benefit greatly from being associated with those games from day 1

https://www.resetera.com/threads/lego-horizon-releases-on-14t...

Looks like the date for Lego Horizon might have been leaked. November 14th.

Could my prediction earlier about the date being a Partner Showcase reveal be true? Would be hilarious if Nintendo is revealing the release date for a major PlayStation title, doubly so if that also happens to be the PS5 Pro release date.

@IceClimbers Wait, the PS5 "pro" is a confirmed thing? Wouldn't Sony have revealed it months ago if it actually existed?

@IceClimbers Probably something for the highlight reel. There's talk of a State of Play next month, so I imagine Sony will want to share more information about their game on their terms. Plus, the 40-minute or so length means the Partner Showcase will likely only be around 20 minutes, so I don't think they'll dwell much on a game that was shown in the last Direct.

There have been a lot of leaks of e.g. devs saying they had info about ps5 pro or had already seen the specs etc. The consensus seems to be that it will officially be announced in September which is why there has been a lot of discussion about whether Nintendo will try to schedule around that to not clash.

@skywake I do think your theory makes sense. I do wonder what Switch titles could be at TGS and if they are being developed for the “Switch 2” as well, given Nintendo is not an exhibitor there and so no news from them is going to be at TGS. I still think that Nintendo does have stuff to talk about; it just isn’t ready to be shown off right now, and when is probably in a few months, maybe in a potential February 2025 direct. I expect way more of their in-development projects to be unveiled around that time.

I do think that them compressing the Partner Showcase and Indie World presentations could also be to sort of give fans a little something in the meantime while Nintendo’s already remaining 2024 games are awaiting release, some unknown projects and the Switch successor are waiting to be revealed; the main thing that everyone is looking forward to.

Surely we’ll see Silksong because think about it, the game is technically indie but arguably too hyped for Indie World. Therefore it has 2 chances to show up, one at each presentation, and it can’t possibly skip both!! (100% ironic)

@Pastellioli
I think it's quite simple really. Not ruling out the idea of a 2025 reveal for "Switch 2" here at all. It's just notable that they're compressing three Directs (museum, partner and indie) into the end of August. They could've very easily spread these out to cover the rest of this year if they didn't have much else to say this year. But they aren't, they're rushing them out the door. Which suggests to me that they have a fair bit to talk about

Could that "other announcement" be more Switch stuff and not Switch 2 related at all? Yes, it could be. We could end up seeing a Direct dedicated to Echoes of Wisdom in September then something to push some new NSO platforms in October before they just chill until a Switch 2 reveal in March next year. It's possible. Can't rule that out

..... however we know they're announcing this FY. Which means it's almost surely releasing relatively soon. Therefore we know that, logically, that a lot of their development effort would have shifted over to that new platform. The Switch 2 announcement is a huge block to a lot of huge announcements Nintendo could make. So it stands to reason that if they're making space in the calendar for other announcements? Switch 2 being one of them would make sense. Because the Switch 2 reveal is the roadblock for Switch 2 software reveals

I'd also add that this was the original source of a lot of the talk RE Directs and when they're happening. Just so everyone here is on the same page:

It's in Portuguese and it's from over two weeks ago. You can turn on auto-translate to get a bit of an idea but the general thrust of it was that there were presentations ready to go that had been scheduled for the end of September. Those had been brought forward to "the next couple of weeks" to make space for other announcements. And he then implied that those Directs would not be about the Switch 2 but they would be one of the last announcements before Switch 2 news

Since then, obviously, we saw the museum direct announced and happen and now the partner showcase and indie world announced ready to happen. Fair to say, this guy got it right and so is presumably right that they had originally planned to have one or more of these through September. But they're not. Because they're making space for another announcement. And these will be one of the last announcements before Switch 2 news. Fair to say if this guy continues to be correct September might be a fun month indeed

Also worth noting that he previously said that the current planned release date for Switch 2 was early 2025, March or April. This was before Eurogamer reported that they'd heard it's not releasing this FY for Nintendo, i.e. it's not releasing before April. So if they're both right? It's April

I genuinely cannot see the PS5 Pro being a welcomed thing for a lot of Sony's userbase. The PS5 barely even had games that took advantage of it- and now Sony expects people to purchase another console that has nothing to play on it?

@skywake What do you think are the chances that all Switch 2 1st party games are crossgen rather than just some? Between the speculation of Switch 2 at $499 and the announcement of the new PS5 price hike, it sounds a lot like pricing will be an increasing problem for consoles going forward. Software however wouldn't suffer if it's also releasing on Switch 1 though and Nintendo have previously said they don't need the extra power for their own games.

@Grumblevolcano
Two separate questions there. For the first I think the safe bet would be that "crossgen" is the exception rather than the rule. In the sense that for most titles they're either within the capabilities of the Switch or they're not. This will be a huge spec jump, this isn't like Wii U -> Switch or GC -> Wii. This is Wii -> Wii U or N64 -> GC.

If Nintendo target the higher spec there's no way that'll be able to run on the Switch. They'll want to use the new hardware, so they will be making exclusives that only run on Switch 2 right out of the gate. So it's fair to say not all games will be Switch compatible. But there are other games that won't need it at all. 2D platformers, remasters, party games. I can see those games just continuing to be for Switch. Maybe with higher resolution or refresh rate options opened up when they run on the newer hardware

In terms of pricing? As I understand it the $499 "speculation" was little more than some analyst throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. There was a fairly decent Nintendo Forecast vid about how they're likely to price this and they landed on $400-450US. I think that's probably closer to the mark and, when you adjust for inflation, is pretty much exactly what Nintendo has always charged for their home consoles

@VoidofLight To be honest, this whole generation has been all over the place for both Sony and Microsoft. Don’t even know what it’ll be like in 5 years time.

Direct wrapped up. Yeah, my predictions were so wrong lol! I was partially right about the NSO stuff, since it was confirmed that Tetris would be coming to the NES service, but there was no big NSO or N64 news, so I now expect an N64 NSO drop either in a potential September Direct or just an announcement Nintendo randomly drops online.

i really miss pyoro ☹️

@Pastellioli As you say, but there was no big NSO or N64 news. I think this will be saved for October perhaps, they will be spreading out what's left of the Switch news now to last up until the new year.
We may get a 5 minutes NSO trailer showing a couple of N64 games plus a Megadrive/GBA update too.

@BANJO True, I wouldn’t be surprised if that is the plan they have for NSO, cuz I would imagine Nintendo wants to put out a lot of games and content throughout the year for the Switch, since they are preparing for the next console and want to probably have lots of content for people to play on the Switch in the meantime. I see what they are doing is kind of a way to give the Switch some pretty strong final years before it’s discontinued.

I think that them instantly dropping a bunch of NSO content would probably result in a lot of people wanting more content when a lot of time passes since then. October does sound like the right time for it. I would predict September or October like you said.

I'm glad I went in with low expectations. Not one new announcement that interested me.