Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

One thing I noticed from the Game Awards is that the FFVII Remake demo that's scheduled for release in 2025 is still missing in action. As Square Enix loves to shadow drop demos in events (e.g. Elliot in July Partner Showcase, Octopath 0 in November State of Play), I thought the Game Awards would be a lock but its absence may increase the chance of something like a Partner Showcase next week.

The final piece of the 2025 puzzle is here, Square Enix shadow dropped the FFVII Remake demo today so in the end I think that and yesterday's Silksong DLC news rules out Partner Showcase. Indie World is still possible for this week but it may be that Nintendo has their next event be something like a January Mini mirroring 2018 considering all that talk on Push Square about the Prince of Persia and AC4 remakes.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say we're either not getting a direct until early February- or after the Pokemon Presents.

@VoidofLight makes sense, they usually have one early-mid Feb

That Spring Direct can't come soon enough, there's been nothing big on the console since Bananza. We desperately need a big new game announced like a 3D Mario (preferably a Bowser's Fury style game) or Luigi's Mansion 4.

@Bolt_Strike At least we'll be getting a Gen 10 announcement in February, with the game being exclusive to Switch 2. Even if it doesn't end up being the best looking in the end, it'll still be a big system seller.

Personally for me, I'm hoping Xenoblade 4 gets announced- although it probably won't move systems as much.

@OmnitronVariant I'm in the same boat. If they can just bump up the graphical aspect and keep the quality of the core gameplay experience consistent, Gen 10 could be a really really great experience.

@VoidofLight They need more than just Gen 10. The Switch 2 is sorely lacking in big, original games, it needs more broadly appealing system sellers. Right now it's primarily relying on MKW and Bananza with most of everything else being a S2E or a niche IP that only sells a few million copies. That's not going to be enough to justify a new generation yet. They need like, 2 or 3 more games on the caliber of MKW/Bananza.

@VoidofLight I don't know why, but my mind immediately went to the 10th Console Generation and not Pokemon...

I'm tired, yall.

Is Switch 2 the 10th console generation? console generations were always pretty made up but feel even more meaningless nowadays.

Although gen 10 pokemon on gen 10 console is kind of satisfying.

The way I see Nintendo console generations is this:
Gen 1: Game and Watch / Arcade (1981-1985)
Gen 2: Nintendo Entertainment System, and Game Boy at the tail end (1985-1990)
Gen 3: Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy (1990-1996)
Gen 4: Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color (1996-2001)
Gen 5: Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance, which eventually passes the torch over to the DS (2001-2006)
Gen 6: Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS, which passes the torch over to the Nintendo 3DS at the tail end (2006-2012)
Gen 7: Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3DS (2012-2017)
Gen 8: Nintendo Switch, with the Nintendo 3DS hanging around a bit longer (2017-2025)
Gen 9: Nintendo Switch 2, with the Nintendo Switch hanging around for who knows how much longer (2025-Present)

And PlayStation and XBox have fewer console gens because they came later.

@Nep-Nep-Freak Not being Nintendo-specific, history usually sticks NES in the third generation of consoles. Generation 2 had things like Atari 2600. And Nintendo had their first console around the same time -the Color TV Game console (Japan only). Generation 1 was e.g. early 70s before any consoles started using cartridges. Nintendo didn't make a console during that first generation but they did make a light gun accessory for the Magnavox Odyssey console so they were at least involved in that generation.

Microsoft only came into existence at the end of generation 1 and wasn't making consoles but created some software which was then used to make basic PC games. Sony wasn't making games in the 70s but they were making plenty of tvs which people played games on 🤔

@FishyS, for me, since new game consoles are constantly coming out from the big three in completely random years (although XBox and Playstation do seem to happen around the exact same time most of the time), I kind of just started making individual console generation lists for each company. I do know that other people do it differently, I just don't really pay much attention to that 😅.

@FishyS I'm not even sure we're at that point. I do know Nintendo's done a lot of dancing between the home console generations, especially lately. I consider it this:

Gen 1: Megavox Odyssey
Gen 2: Atari 2600, Intellivision, ColecoVision
Gen 3: NES/Famicom, Sega Master System, Atari 7800
Gen 4: SNES/Super-Famicom, Sega Genesis/Mega Drive
Gen 5: Nintendo 64, Saturn, PlayStation
Gen 6: GameCube, Genesis, PS2, Xbox
Gen 7: Wii, PS3, Xbox 360
Gen 8: Wii U, PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Gen 9: PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2

Granted, this doesn't include handhelds. Additionally, specific generations are starting to become a less important factor.

@ElRoberico I think the main question is whether to count Wii U and Switch as seperate generations. But also... it's all made up so it really doesn't matter 😆

@Bolt_Strike Gen 10 is definitely going to be one of those larger scale games. I don't think we'll see a new 3D mario or 3D Zelda anytime soon though. Definitely not a new Pikmin, and a new Animal Crossing is off the table given the 3.0 update for New Horizons. Luigi's Mansion 4 could happen, but realistically it depends on how busy Next Level Games has been. I know they helped to develop Prime 4.

@VoidofLight New Pokemon generations did not stop them from having other large scale games the same here. SwSh launched the same year as Luigi's Mansion 3 and SV launched the same year as Splatoon 3.

We are almost certainly getting 3D Mario relatively soon. The only thing that could derail that is development struggles. Nintendo always likes to have a new, original Mario, especially a new 3D Mario now, as an early system seller for their hardware. It's almost always there by the 2nd anniversary's of the hardware release (and usually by that 2nd holiday season), with the only exception being the GBA which weirdly didn't have a new main series Mario game at all (it instead relied on remakes of the NES/SNES games). If we don't at least have an announcement of a 3D Mario coming by June 5, 2027 (and even then that's still a bit odd, it really should be by Holiday 2026), then Mario's absence will be really conspicuous.

@VoidofLight @Bolt_Strike I kind of wonder with Next Level helping with Prime 4 if their next game will be a new Federation Force style game rather than Luigi's Mansion 4. Switch 2 has brought lots of surprises like 3D DK being picked over 3D Mario, Kirby spinoff being picked over Smash, the return of Virtual Boy, etc. so Federation Force being given another chance would feel right at home with Nintendo's other game choices for the console.

I do think Federation Force had potential but came at the wrong time for the wrong console, Switch 1 would've been a better fit for the 3DS game.

@Bolt_Strike I'm not saying that a new Pokemon generation is stopping them from releasing any other big titles. I'm just saying that Pokemon is one of the few big ones we know will be there next year. The reason why I said I can't see a new 3D mario or Zelda being revealed any time soon is less because of Pokemon itself, and more because of the timing. We just got Donkey Kong Bananza, and while key members of the Odyssey team were missing on the project- there's no telling if that really means we'll get a 3D Mario soon or not. I feel like if it were coming out next year, they would've revealed it in the Mario Anniversary portion of the direct instead of saving the new 2D Yoshi game for the final reveal of that portion. As for Zelda, we're probably not going to see a new 3D Zelda for another 5-6 years from now if both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom's waits were anything to really go by.

@Grumblevolcano I could see them doing another Federation Force style game- especially given how well Prime 4 is selling (even though most seem to think of Prime 4 as being among the weaker entries in Metroid). It would be a better time now due to us already having another Metroid Prime game and a 2D Metroid game under our belts.

The only other thing I can think of next year is potentially a new Xenoblade or Monolithsoft game- but even then those aren't really big system pushers. They're more akin to Fire Emblem, where people will definitely purchase the console for those games- but they don't really appeal to a casual audience.

They wouldn't have greenlit Bananza if it meant not getting a 3D Mario. Mario is the face of Nintendo, that's why they want it early. As for why they didn't show it in the Mario Anniversary Direct, they usually keep Mario announcements close to their chest and tend to only announce it a few months before release. Plus a Mario announcement would overshadow everything else so it would undercut the sales of other games like Galaxy 1+2 and Yoshi.