Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Welp. Isn't this how it goes every year with Nintendo? Just consistently failing to capitalise on opportunity... this year should be an open goal for Nintendo, can't we expect something more?

@Paraka Oh... Twitter rumours.

@Paraka – Exactly. I don’t think we should get our hopes up too much, even though I am still excited to see what is coming at the start of the year. I actually love Wii U Ports, so really want to see what games are coming over to the Switch.

@Harmonie – That’s a very reasonable observation. I suppose I was thinking primarily of Directs as I think this will be the last one before E3. However, you are absolutely right that Nintendo has said there will be ‘announcements throughout the year’ so I totally agree we could get more news through social media and announcements just being dropped randomly.

However, those expecting the next Mario Kart to be announced at this Direct are going to be sorely disappointed. There is no way that or any other major game first party is being dropped until later in the year.

The real one I am looking forward to is whether Super Mario 3D World is being ported or not. Given that we generally get only one Mario game per year – if it is not being ported then we might be getting Odyssey 2. If it is being ported, I can’t see another mainstream 3D Mario game coming – obviously rumoured Paper Mario would be somewhat different, so could be coming anyway.

Why do you say this? I just provided past evidence of major first party titles being revealed in regular Directs, including Super Smash Bros Ultimate being revealed in a March Direct.

@Harmonie You could be completely right and maybe they will announce a major title, I just think it is unlikely. No matter how many times Nintendo pretends they are not in competition with Sony and Microsoft, the reality is that they are - so they need to save all the big hitters for later in the year to compete with the releases of the next generation consoles and to accompany a possible Switch Pro console.

Again, I absolutely accept I could be wrong. After all, Nintendo is completely unpredictable and they might just blind slide us with a major new release. However, all the information from Emily Rogers (who has mentioned we can expect a quiet start to the year) and other credible sources leads me to believe that won't be the case.

Nintendo E3 nowadays is mostly just a place to reveal more details about existing Nintendo games and new 3rd party games. The only new Nintendo published announcements at E3 2019 for example were:

• Smash DLC (Hero and Banjo)
• No More Heroes III
• BotW 2

The rest were either more details on already known content or 3rd party announcements. Most of the new Nintendo announcements made in 2019 came in a February 2019 Direct (Tetris 99, Box Boy + Box Girl, Captain Toad DLC, Star Fox DLC for Starlink, Mario Maker 2, DQXI S, Astral Chain, Link's Awakening, Pokemon Sword/Shield).

A similar comparison can be made between E3 2018 and the early 2018 Directs (January Direct Mini, March Direct). Nintendo has been taking into account that there will be time when E3 doesn't exist anymore though not going to the same extremes as Sony.

So I'd say if 2020 looks barren after the early 2020 Direct, it probably means it is barren and Nintendo will dedicate E3 2020 to BotW 2 like they did with Smash in 2018 and BotW in 2016.

@Yoshi87 pretty much, I'm hoping this Direct to be the best of all with tons of third and first party announcements cause at this rate I'll have bought all the games I want on Switch. Nintendo needs to desperately announce more games

@La-weejee So have they been editing the direct then? Haven't they already filmed the direct??

@Yoshi87 Last year's February Direct announced Super Mario Maker 2, Astral Chain, and Link's Awakening (plus Tetris 99 and Boxboy + Boxgirl).

Them announcing a major title wouldn't be that surprising, even if it doesn't release until later in the year.

@DannyBoi yea just finishing up on all the bells and whistles. It’s coming. My leaker “mogambo” told me 😀

I remember around the time the NX became the Switch in discussions (pretty sure it may have already been 2017), there were rumors of Cruis'n Blast being an arcade port for 2018. But uh... clearly that didn't happen.

As for major announcements, don't forget last year we got the Super Mario Maker 2 announcement in the Q1 direct, and I'm pretty sure Mario Tennis Aces was also a Q1 announcement. Switch Presentation doesn't count of course being a one off but I'd be very surprised if we didn't get something major announced or teased with so much a secret.

EDIT: Just at thought, but imagine a Crash/Spyro like remake of the original three games? USA, World and Exotica could make for a crazy remake pack.

Interesting, it took 894 posts between speculation on 28th December 2018 and the announcement of the Direct on 12th February 2019.

For 13th December 2019 to current has been 500 posts so far. I'd imagine large backlogs were partially a factor in fewer posts.

How long have we gone without a direct for?

@DannyBoi 157 days.

Damn! That's a long time!

@Grumblevolcano Makes sense, I'm still not actually anxious for it, I just am used to checking this thread for posts.

I feel like at this point they want Nintendo Directs to be special events focused heavily on games that are newly announced and usually soon to be released. So I think that's why there seems to be less of them, because they are waiting on the right time with the right games. That and the direction of just announcing games quickly rather than focusing on more than a handful of them. Like there's plenty of Switch games that arguably could use some more focus, even if they're not new. But they often do really well so I guess they've decided "we don't need too much focus on what Witcher 3 is in our Directs" because it did well on Switch AFAIK.

Okay... are we getting an announcement this week?

One day before Valentine Day

Or

Beautiful number 20/02/2020

Valentine Day

Announcement will be tomorrow for a direct on Wednesday. It is written.