Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Instead of hinting like usual, Pyoro just flat out said we would get a Xenoblade X trailer today. And this was a few days in advance. So should we trust them completely? Clearly no. Do they still have some type of source? I would say clearly yes.

@FishyS Yeah I find it a bit weird that this one was leaked so early, most stand-alone trailers don’t usually get rumours like that. We have almost no rumours for when Switch 2’s reveal will be (besides our favorite leaker Furukawa saying it’s before the end of March), so it is slightly concerning that it could be a lot later than a lot of people are expecting.

I think Nintendo wants a trailer for it at the SuperBowl so probably late January/early February reveal would be the latest.

@Grumblevolcano That’s a good point, I didn’t realize that’s how they handled the other Xenoblade remaster. Perhaps they have a different marketing strategy for this series, or just a different marketing team from Monolithsoft?

I'm not totally convinced by the Superbowl argument. Yes they did it before, but if they wanted an ad lots of people saw they could have gotten to an even larger audience for likely a lesser price at the Game Awards.

@FishyS Personally I think SuperBowl has a bigger audience, and the people watching may be the target audience instead of the ‘traditional gamers’ that watched TGA. The Game Awards is pretty infamous and Nintendo doesn’t usually do much with it anyways so I doubt they’d reveal a console on TGA’s terms

I'm just going by all the recent articles (including on this site I believe) saying more people watched the game awards. I forget the exact number but it was over 150 million. Super Bowl is very US-centric so it does make sense a more international event can get more viewers. Obviously the more international sporting events have far more viewers than both game awards and super bowl but those are televised differently so I don't think you could get a single ad to those wide audiences.

I don't think they would reveal a console on super bowl's terms either which was my point. If they happen to be planning to reveal before Super Bowl they may or may not decide to put an ad, but I doubt it is too important to their decision process.

@FishyS That's fair, I didn't really know the numbers. A bit disappointing that that many people watched game awards, but I don't care much for either Game Awards or SuperBowl.

@PikminMarioKirby It is bizarre that many people watched game awards because it's.. not very good 😆 It's basically just a series of ads. I think the numbers just say something about how many gamers there are in the world.

@FishyS Yeah the shows are pretty bad, I can only recall a few moments I enjoyed of them in the past few years. Probably most PlayStation fans watch, as well as PC gamers. I feel like majority of Switch owners probably don't watch the game awards, especially with how little Nintendo is there. Some certainly will (especially if they have other consoles as well), but a lot surely don't.

I like Nintendo Directs a lot better. Even besides it being Nintendo, it feels straight to the point and most of the time trailers don't just feel like ads for games. Some Directs are worse than others, but I'd say they have a better track record than the Game Awards.

Is Nintendo doing another Twitter Direct like they did in October last year? (Nintendo music, Alarmo, Xenoblade X announcement) (and backwards compatibility announcement was pretty close to those)

Just today we got an Xenoblade trailer and a Gameboy Lego announcement. I wouldn't be too surprised if we heard about a potential February game soon either. (Robobot please?)

This pertains a bit to the Pokemon Presents on the 27th of February- but from the trademark info we just got today, I'm kind of scared. We just got the trademarks for Pokemon Z-A's TCG set. "Mega Brave" and "Mega Symphonia." The reason why this scares me a bit is because these sets are most likely slated for June-August, as we already know what all the sets in the TCG are up until June. Given the launch windows of sets, the latest these sets could launch is August- and that would most likely place Z-A as a summer release given that the games these sets are based on usually launch a month before the TCG set does.

The issue this creates is that Gamefreak has no Holiday game if this is the case. At least- no holiday game that we know of. Z-A could have been that, but given that they're possibly going to avoid their usual Holiday release slot for no real reason makes me wonder if they're actually going to reveal two games next month. If they're going to reveal both Z-A and either tease or fully reveal Generation 10 of Pokemon as well. If so, I genuinely don't understand Gamefreak at all. They really could get by with just releasing Z-A, but they're going to probably rush the next generation of Pokemon again in order to get it out for this year.

Another thing to note is that if Gen 10 is revealed at the Presents next month, that means depending on how they reveal Gen 10- whether its a simple tease of the future of the series or a full reveal, that the Switch 2 is almost outright going to get revealed either by the end of this Month or before the end of next month. Mainly because Gen 10- unlike Z-A is projected to be a Switch 2 exclusive game. At least going off of the Teraleak.

@VoidofLight I mean, gen 10 will almost certainly be 2026 regardless since that is 30th anniversary. Since Pokemon is already 'off schedule' they may just be doing Legends early in the year because of spinoffs/etc. incoming as well as gen 10. As for not having a big holiday game for 2025 that could also have been a scheduling agreement with Nintendo... I imagine the Fall Nintendo release schedule will be hectic this year.

@FishyS I mean, it could be a scheduling agreement with Nintendo- but at the same time I wouldn't be so confident in 2026 being Gen 10. I hope that is when gen 10 launches, but the anniversary doesn't necessarily hold them back. Especially now that they do DLC for these games. There's a heavy chance that the next games could have DLC that ends up being a celebration of the series- with that being the anniversary content for the game.

Ultimately we'll have to see, but I'm genuinely hoping we don't get Gen 10 this year, so that they can take their time with it.

I think that gen 10 is 2026 for the anniversary of Pokemon (maybe more than a half finished game this time?). Z-A could possibly be earlier than the usual November because Switch 2 games will likely take over holiday slots.

@FishyS @VoidofLight I'd guess if it does release during the summer, it's something to do with how Nintendo wants to handle Switch 1 support in the Switch 2 era.

Legends Z-A in the usual November slot has both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, you have a big game for the holiday season but on the other hand it's also for the old hardware so people may come to the conclusion not to bother with the new hardware.

That latter point may be what makes Nintendo want it out of the holiday season.

I mean usually Pokemon is it's own thing. Black 2 and White 2 were in a November slot despite the 3DS just coming out. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon were the same deal. I think it's probably more than "Nintendo wants to use the Holiday slot for something else."

@VoidofLight This is the first Nintendo generation transition which doesn't have a fallback though, Nintendo may decide to be extra cautious.

@Grumblevolcano It really just depends. Nintendo might also see Gen 10 as a way to get a ton of holiday sales and show people that the Switch 2 will be the future home of the next Pokemon titles. The brand is a console seller, despite the fans being disgruntled with it.

I saw a link to famiboards in one of these threads - never visited the site before this week. That place is insane. So much information (speculation), my head hurts. It distracted me for way too long today…. Will there be haptic feedback? Mouse-like functionality? 5nm vs 8nm? Announcement tomorrow or in 2 weeks? I can’t stop myself from going down the rabbit hole……

@Lazz All the biggest leaks have slowly been migrating from famiboards to Nintendo Life articles. There have been a truly massive amount of leaks the last few days — even more hardware information, the boxes Switch 2 games will be in, lots of information about pre-orders for AAA third party games for Switch 2, accessory and controller information, something about the internal operating system... basically everything except actual first-party games. And the reveal date leaks are fairly murky. The pure number of leaks has gotten a bit ridiculous though.

@FishyS it went from fun to overwhelming pretty dang fast.