Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Donkey Kong Bananza Direct this Wednesday.
Doesn't look like we'll get a general direct this week.

I'm probably not going to watch the Bananza direct honestly. Seems like it'll spoil things and I'm already convinced on buying the game.

Starting to think my prediction from prior to the April Direct is correct: the next big general Direct is in September, and they will just focus on the already announced games in the mean time. No big June Direct.

I'm gonna predict that next week we'll get a Partner Showcase to get some 3rd party news out there (Elden Ring release date, anyone?). Then the next bit of news outside of DK/Mario Party marketing will be the Pokémon Presents on July 22nd, where we'll get Legends ZA news and a release date/Switch 2 Edition for Pokémon Champions.

Sometime in July (possibly prior to the Presents), we'll get a new trailer and release date for Drag x Drive on Nintendo Today.

What about Switch 2 updates for Fire Emblem and Xenoblade series? Will we get these any time soon or we will have to wait main Direct?

@IceClimbers It's possible Nintendo is shifting when General Directs happen now that we're on a new console gen. Maybe January, April, July, October instead?

It seems like they can't get too far past the new DK game without announcing some end-of-year heavy hitters. Waiting until September is too long to announce MP4 and Legends: ZA's release dates.

Some people were theorizing there may be a direct this week because NOA has unpinned their switch 2 tweet. However, it probably doesn't mean anything cause the Europe and Japan accounts both pinned the bananza direct tweet, so somebody probably just forgot.

@Bigmanfan This is crazy copium

@Tayrailbridge Yeah, some people read a little too deep into nothing.

With a Tetris 99 announcement post early, could we be seeing an NSO announcement tonight? Chibi Robo lines up

Edit: just a Nintendo music addition after all, wasn’t expecting Yoshi’s Story. I wonder when the first GCN game will be added?

@Joev14 Legends ZA is coming out October 16th though? The only games without dates now are MP4, Hyrule Warriors, DragXDrive and Kirby Air Riders. MP4 /Air Riders is likely November, and Hyrule Warriors December (the only two months without exclusives, we have DK -> Jamboree+ -> Kirby+ -> Daemon Ex Machina -> Legends ZA) so I could see it waiting until September.

Drag X Drive will probably be a YouTube trailer drop for it's date.

Capcom’s event likely rules out Thursday so if there was one this week it would be announced today for airing on Wednesday. I could see a Partner Showcase where they announce MHWilds and RE9 for Switch 2 but too close to the DK Bananza Direct to be a general Direct.

I wonder if there will be any new Mario game announced for this y. If not, it would be disappointing given this year is Mario’s 40th anniversary.

@Don I don’t see a new Mario for this year. They probably won’t want to step on Bananza’s toes if there’s a Mario game even in production at the moment.

@link3710 Splatoon Raiders also has no release date, I personally am guessing Summer '26 but a lot of speculation is around it being a Drizzle Season release (September, for those unfamiliar).

This is now indeed strange...
Where's the new indie or third-party Switch 2 announcements or Switch 2 edition upgrades? Almost nothing has been announced outside those Switch 2 reveal trailers, No Man's Sky Switch 2 is almost the only exception this so far...

Something had to happen soon or not? Nintendo appears to changed their tactics now during the "Switch 2 era".
It's almost like if almost none of those third-parties devs actually got a SW2 dev kit until very recently, or still haven't received it yet.

I really hope that the history doesn't repeats again with that despicable "wait and see" approach like they did with Switch. It took 4 years until Atlus released their first game despite of releasing 3-5 games yearly on 3DS during its 5 or 6 first years. The memory of the epic Wii U catastrophe is probably still very fresh. So they'll probably wait until when Switch 2 has sold +50m before they're jumping onboards then with barebones and severely gimped ports a la Switch 1, sadly I'm pretty certain of that it's gonna happen again.

I don't think I want to watch Nintendo Direct anymore after the game key card situation for 3rd party games.
I don't want to feel excited for a while then suddenly turned into disappointment after realized the games got game key card treatment or code in box for even worse.

@VoidofLight @Don I think MKW counts as a big Mario game, at least to Nintendo. Mario Kart is the money maker, after all.

@Keman That's exactly what it is. Murmurings were happening about how tons of Nintendo partner studios haven't actually gotten dev kits yet. That's why there's been this major lack of announcements or Switch 2 editions revealed.

@CaleBoi25 Yeah, I didn't include that because it's almost certainly a 2026 game.

I don't think July general Direct makes much sense unless they're treating Drag x Drive like Everybody 1-2-Switch:

• Week 1 (June 30th - July 6th) - Too close to the Drag x Drive release date announcement, they'd have put it in the Direct instead if there was a Direct that week
• Week 2 (July 7th - 13th) - Summer Nights is that weekend, Nintendo usually stays out of the way of Splatoon events when it comes to general Direct timings
• Week 3 (July 14th - 20th) - Doing a general Direct that week would overshadow DK Bananza
• Week 4 (July 21st - 27th) - Pokemon Presents is that week
• Week 5 (July 28th - August 3rd) - At this point you may as well wait until September