Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

I guess I sort of missed the Smash Bros conversation yesterday but I just wanted to add my two cents.

I know Sakurai didn't actually confirm anything related to the next smash bros game but he did say on his youtube channel that since its such a big seller for Nintendo that it's fair to assume they'd make another one.

I actually still think Smash Bros has a lot of possibilities, and I don't think they'd simply just port Smash Ultimate to the Switch 2. (Funny enough, this exact conversation always came up about Smash 4 prior to ultimate.)

My biggest criticisms of Smash Ultimate has always been that it felt like there wasn't much to do in the game. Like yeah there was a big roster, but what else? If you wanted to play solo there wasn't much to do. Classic mode and home run contest were fun for an hour. World of Light was really boring, and grinding for spirits wasn't very fun. Once you got good enough spirits you could just hold F smash and wait for the CPU to walk into it, and that was pretty much it 😅

Ideally if you didn't like playing solo it would make sense to play online. But Smash Ultimates Online is notoriously bad as well. Even outside of the lag or latency I think forcing preferred rules and the GSP system in quickplay was a pretty bad move. Literally whenever I got a character into Elite Smash I wouldn't play them again because I didn't want them to fall out 😂

Even minor things like getting clips from replays is such a hassle in Smash Ultimate and no one ever talks about it. You should be able to fast forward and rewind in replays. The in game video editor could be improved greatly.

I know everyone seems to believe that Nintendo shouldn't cut the roster because it wouldn't sell as well if they do, but I think the internet tends to exaggerate things like this. Remember when everyone was upset about Pokemon cutting the national dex for Pokemon Sword and Shield? We heard all about it online yet Pokemon Sword and Shield became the second best selling games in the series lol.

Some of the controversy smash ultimate had also comes from the size of its roster. Remember how upset everyone was about how many fire emblem characters there were? The only reason why that happened was because they made the decision to bring back everyone.

Personally I think trimming the roster in favor of more content is the way to go. I've had my main cut before when smash 4 was released, but I just picked up a new character and still enjoyed the game.

Of course everyone talks about having an actual story mode so we can see the characters interact but I think it could still go further than that.

I think it would be cool if they took inspiration from mario maker and expanded stage builder so people could create customizable stages for other modes like target smash, board the platforms, race to the finish, etc. If they made those available online as well, I think that would be very well received. Not only would this breathe new life into the other game modes, but it would add more things to do online as well. (Fun fact, brawl actually did allow people to do home run contest online. Dunno why they never did that again.)

@Grumblevolcano
I don't think Nintendo cares much about the gaming YouTube sphere. At least not outside of them not being able to control the message more broadly. I don't think they care much at all about a performance analysis or the DF commentary. Especially given that, despite the perception from some, it's often pretty positive coverage

I think more likely they just don't particularly want to talk about performance sometimes. If I was to guess their intent with this trailer was to keep Switch interest going. Like it was with Galaxy 1&2. So any Switch 2 resolution bumps, should they happen alongside, are not really important for that message

I don't think there's a Partner Showcase now as today we've seen the delay of Elden Ring to 2026, the announcement of AC Shadows (December) and an announcement of Fallout 4 (2026). I do still have high hopes for a Prime 4 Direct though.

This would be nice, but I don't think many people play Smash for its single player, they play for its multiplayer. They could add a few modes, sure, but I don't think that by itself would justify a new Smash.

Who is saying this? I didn't see a single person here say that Ultimate's roster should remain the way it is. I don't think anyone here is under the illusion that that's feasible and Sakurai himself even admitted as such. What I was saying was that if the game was largely similar to Ultimate but with the smaller roster THAT wouldn't sell well and they need to do something very different and game-changing to justify a Smash 6.

You point to SwSh as an example of how smaller rosters can sell, but the thing with SwSh is that it wasn't just SM with less Pokemon. It was a console scale Pokemon with a Hyrule Field-esque open area, overworld encounters, and Dynamax and Max Raid battles. That was significant enough to make up for Dexit in some people's eyes. Mario Kart World was in a similar position, MK8D had nearly every track in the game because of the BCP and there was no way that World could include nearly that many, so instead they went in the open world direction to create a new experience. THAT is what I'm saying Smash 6 needs to be. Not necessarily open world (that worked for Pokemon and Mario Kart but it probably will not work for Smash), just something that makes the game feel very different. I can't really predict what (the only thing I could think of that would fit that bill would be going 3D, but I'm not sure Nintendo wants to take Smash in that direction), but something bold that no one could possibly mistake for Ultimate.

@Grumblevolcano Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader also got a release date and System Shock remake got announced for Switch and Switch 2 so that also to me says that there will not be another Partner Showcase this year, Indie World is still a possibility though
Maybe I'm alone in this but I think Prime 4 Direct is a terrible idea, even if it was just around 20 minutes it would show off too much of the game so an overview trailer that 6-8 minutes would be much better

@Bolt_Strike I wasn't necessarily talking about any one person in this thread in particular just my general thoughts based on what has been floating around the internet. I was just watching a video with some of the competitve smash bros players just the other day, and one of them was pretty adamant that the next smash bros shouldn't cut the roster and instead go for 100 characters (which I really hope they don't). I see this sentiment quite often.

But I agree with what you said and I think new modes would help make a new game feel distinct from the others. When people talk about Brawl they almost always bring up Subspace and it's probably the only reason why anyone still talks about that game even nearly 20 years later. They could really capitalize on a proper adventure mode. Or like I said at the end of my original post, taking inspiration from mario maker and expanding stage builder to other modes would add a whole new layer of multiplayer.

Like you said, I don't see smash bros ever going down the 3D route which is why I think this is the way to go. The only other thing I can think of is that they may give some character movesets an overhaul, since some characters have had the same moves for a while now.

@Vortexeo agreed, I only ever hear about Brawl because of the story mode..... Or the theme song. That one goes so hard, and I have yet to meet someone who played that game and can't hum the tune!

Nintendo's finally started to market Age of Imprisonment.

@skywake It's what viewers do with Digital Foundry analysis which can cause negativity cycles, we've seen it happen already with Switch 2 before. Nintendo bragging about performance has led to plenty of people having inflated expectations about the console, look at your typical Legends Z-A article comments section for example. But all this could've been avoided if Nintendo just didn't talk about performance at all.

@Grumblevolcano You know, maybe if they made the console more than just a spec boost they'd have something else to brag about.

@Bolt_Strike Then people people would complain that Nintendo wasted money on gimmicks rather than specs. It's a lost cause for the people who just like to rage complain.

I would argue that the criticisms of where Pokemon is visually and performance wise is a bit different. And certainly I would expect that a resolution bump for Pikmin 4 of all things would not attract the same commentary

Look, people who want to complain will use whatever hammer they have. Whether that's a DF analysis video or whatever else they might find. It's just the way it be. All I'm saying is that I don't think Nintendo is particularly fussed about that commentary. I don't think they'd be running away from it. Broadly, it's largely good news stories so why would they? .... I just don't think game resolution output is particularly high on their list in terms of marketing

As I said, in regards to Pikmin 4 getting a resolution bump on Switch 2, it could be in this free update like how the Galaxy 1 & 2 release had 4K support on Switch 2. Nintendo did not mention it in the announcement, it's not on the box, it was I believe on the eShop page in some regions. But it was basically not mentioned outside of post-launch technical analysis videos

And when you think about it it makes sense. The user who cares about this stuff either isn't really engaging with Nintendo's hardware anyways or is enough of an enthusiast that they'll find out this information anyways. But for the bulk of their audience it's just additional noise that gets in the way

@skywake That's... literally what they're marketing for some of these Switch 2 games, especially some of the S2Es because that's all they have going for them. They literally do little to nothing over their Switch 1 counterparts except better performance. Prime 4 and Z-A are good examples, the only other thing the Prime 4 S2E does over the Switch 1 version is mouse controls and for Z-A it's literally nothing else. So if they want people to buy the S2Es they pretty much have to market the performance, that's the only reason to spend the extra $10. I don't buy this notion one bit when about 80% of Nintendo releases, even before the Switch 2, are selling on the notion of "here's the exact same game all over again on the shiny new console with higher resolution/framerate", if they don't want people talking about the performance bump, add something other than a performance bump to these ports/remakes/remasters in the first place. It is utterly ludicrous to claim that Nintendo doesn't care about performance even in spite of their hardware being underpowered, you'd have to be blind not to see it.

Looks like tomorrow's the last chance for a Prime 4 Direct announcement. Next week is Age of Imprisonment's launch and Nintendo don't really do 1st party Directs the week of 1st party releases meanwhile the following week seems too late for a Prime 4 Direct.

@Grumblevolcano Why not Nov 11?

Imprisonment Nov 6
Prime Direct - shadow drop with the app - Nov 11
Kirby - Nov 20
Thanksgiving (big US holiday in top market for the game) - Nov 27
Prime 4- Dec 4

@RobLife1 Nintendo's game specific Directs have been at least 4 weeks before launch, for example:

• Kirby Air Riders Direct 2 - October 23rd, game launch November 20th
• DK Bananza Direct - June 18th, game launch July 17th
• MK World Direct - April 17th, game launch June 5th
• SMB Wonder Direct - August 31st, game launch October 20th
• Splatoon 3 Direct - August 10th, game launch September 9th
• XC3 Direct - June 22nd, game launch July 29th

Next week is the 4 week mark for Prime 4.

@Grumblevolcano

hmm the closest looks like 28 days. Interesting but Nintendo will Nintendo....

Without a dedicated prime direct to announce them, I suspect the odds of Prime 2/3 are zero this year.

@Grumblevolcano Ugh, if they end up skipping a Direct that's a legit doomed moment. Prime 4 desperately needs this, they have fumbled the marketing SO HARD for this game and as is I think it's not going to pass Dread let alone reach the 5 million mark that I think Metroid desperately needs to become relevant again. There is so little clarity on how this game is going to play that I can't see anyone other than Metroid diehards wanting it right now. The re-reveal just kept showing the same handful of clips and sections over and over and over that tell us almost nothing and then when they finally open their mouth to tell us more in the September Direct, they give us the open world bike sections with zero context to the point where you can't even tell how much it's like a traditional Metroid game or a bland open world game. Honestly whoever's in charge of the marketing for this game deserves to be fired, it feels like they've done everything possible to confuse the audience and make this game as unappealing as possible.

@Bolt_Strike My personal excitement for the game has been gradually deteriorating over time. I'm definitely not getting it at launch now because it comes out at the same time as Octopath so it's a matter of whether it ends up looking good enough for me to still pick it up later on after the initial hype. I was excited for it at one point but it's just a maybe for me at the moment.

We got a fairly long Treehouse segment showing the MP4 gameplay early on, so I'm not feeling completely in the dark. Sure, we only got to see the bike every recently, and that's thrown some into a loop about it, but that appears to me to be a relatively addition to a game built on previously established core elements.

Going back to Dread, that game didn't get its own Direct either and I don't think it particularly needs one. It's not like there's a high profile and camera friendly director like Sakurai and they've always been games best approached with an element of mystery about them. Let's also not forget that Prime Remastered was just dropped on the same day, and it seems to have been popular enough.

It's certainly a game that I'd like to be seeing more marketing for though, and I'd think that it's been a victim of the late year release pile-up. Maybe it was supposed to be ready in September, like that London Underground poster campaign at the time suggested, but missed the boat and it'll all have to be crammed into the first few weeks of December instead.

Finally, there's always the question mark over whether a game that's been delayed for so long is going to be any good or not. Sometimes you'll get a Diablo III out of it and sometimes you'll get a Duke Nukem Forever, with plenty in between. I think I can wait a bit longer to see the reviews come in, myself.