Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Didn't we play this game with the Switch 2 reveal endlessly only for them to drop the trailer on the day DKCR HD released? I would have thought we'd have learnt our lesson, I guess not

A February Direct seems likely. I'll say now what I said last year, they're always going to want to have something to say to investors before their AGM. There'll be something before March to kick off the year

@IceClimbers I feel like the Duskbloods probably won't disrupt any plans Nintendo has first-party wise. Even though it is an exclusive game for the console, it is a FromSoft game.

@skywake We did although that was quite a unique situation in hindsight. Plus it was quite sneaky as it didn't disrupt DKCR HD's marketing cycle and yet ended up putting more eyes on Donkey Kong for other reasons (that design change was quite a shock at the time!)

You'd be hard pressed to find a Direct that drops in the same week as a first-party release, the Virtual Boy stuff I'm less hung up on especially as it's earlier in the week.

@FishyS
Well that's pretty much what I'm saying: 2 games with mass appeal, Mario Tennis Fever and Pokopia. (I wish I could put Yoshi in here, and I'm excited for the game, but most of us can admit that what they're doing with Yoshi lately is... not great.)

Everything else is niche. Tomodachi life (spelling?) - I know people love that game and it sold impressively, but it's far from mainstream in franchise recognition. I've never played one of those games, and I'm a pretty avid gamer. Rhythm Heaven is also niche in name and in sales - barely cracked a million?

Raiders is at least summer, in my estimation, and Fire Emblem is nowhere to be seen on the official release schedule.

They have room to make some announcements lol

I could be sneaky and say that Metroid Prime Remastered released on the same day as a Direct. I would say you're right that usually they're able to shuffle things around so the schedules work out. And it's not that hard to do given that they tend to have about one game a month and there's obviously more than one week a month. So its usually easy for them to have a release not steal attention from a Direct, and visa-versa

But I do think that people tend to put a bit too much stock into the idea. And it usually works like that. But they've also shown that they're more than happy to have announcements, events and releases overlap when it suits. Maybe they think the audience of those two things doesn't align, maybe they're happy to let the second thing be overshadowed. Who knows. But what I do know is that I wouldn't rule it out

Can I just say that is the most egregious thing anyone has said on these forums I've seen today. And the bar was fairly low. I will not abide this Rhythm Heaven slander

@skywake
lol sorry man, but I never heard of it until now

@rallydefault
Obviously in jest, but still I can say with a straight face it's probably one of my favourite games on the DS. Certainty my most anticipated game of the year

Also in terms of sales, it moved ~3mill on DS. Which isn't Pokemon, Animal Crossing or Mario numbers. But it was more than Tetris, WarioWare and Spirit Tracks. It sits alongside Kirby and Yoshi on DS in terms of sales performance

Although admittedly that was its peak and I'm not sure if the stars would align on Switch quite like they did on DS. And it has been a dormant franchise for a decade. In any case, in my eyes at least, it's a relatively big deal

@skywake
Yea - seems like the DS was a high point for some of those more niche franchises, I’m assuming because the form factor fits those games so well.

I don't think they can afford to keep to only the Spring/Summer games right now when they're all B or C tier sellers. The Switch 2 is showing signs of slowing sales momentum from the holiday and the lack of big hitter titles is a major factor. And while it's getting rarer now, they have revealed titles outside of the upcoming season. Off the top of my head, Splatoon 3 was announced in 2021 as a 2022 release, for example. I think Nintendo needs to show if there are any big hitters besides Pokemon Gen 10 in this Direct. Hell, maybe even tease the big 2027 games. But they need to assure people that the big new entries in the IPs they're waiting for are coming.

@rallydefault @Bolt_Strike I think Gen 10 and taking advantage of the Galaxy movie releasing in early April is enough for bringing people into the Switch 2 ecosystem. Especially if they announce Switch 2 Lite.

The rest of the Fall/Holiday lineup announcements can wait for Q2.

@Grumblevolcano
They are not announcing a new Switch 2 model within the first year of release.

@Grumblevolcano Ehh, I don't think it will, neither of these feel like Switch 2 hype drivers.

Gen 10 hype is probably not picking up until summer, Game Freak typically doesn't reveal much about the new games until then and the trailers before are more like vague teasers. SV, for example, only showed snippets of gameplay until August when they gave us a full blowout, and for past games we usually didn't get the full blowout until June. We are likely not going to learn enough about Gen 10 on Pokemon Day for it to tide fans over during Spring.

As for the Galaxy movie, movies and movies. It's a different medium. There's probably not enough crossover to get people excited about the movies to go out and buy a Switch 2 if they're not already interested.

Honestly with November already being bad, if December was bad too then 1H 2026 (and possibly longer if they don't make the right announcements) is going to feel pretty dire. I just don't see things turning around until they announce a megaton game that isn't Gen 10 Pokemon.

Yeah, Switch 2 lite seems very unlikely to me anytime soon. In terms of hardware I could imagine a Zelda or Pokemon themed Switch 2 this year for the anniversaries, but I doubt anything else.

@Bolt_Strike I could see them pulling a Sword and Shield and at least giving us the starters, protagonists, and info about the region itself/map. At least I hope they do that, and they won't repeat a Sun and Moon style reveal where we get nothing but the titles and have to wait until later in the year to actually see the starter pokemon and region.

@VoidofLight SM is the exception and not the rule for new generation reveals. Every other new generation reveal they've shown the starters. I'm not sure we'll see a full region map but we should at least see some shots of various locations in the region. That's pretty much it for a typical reveal trailer, show a few shots of the overworld, show some battle footage between some existing Pokemon returning in the game, reveal the starters. And we pretty much sit on that until another Pokemon Presents sometime in the summer (they might reveal a vague detail or two in between but typically spring is practically crickets for main series Pokemon news).

@Bolt_Strike Sun and Moon was the exception, yeah- but this generation is another anniversary game.. which is why I'm worried they're going to repeat the way they revealed Sun and Moon. I'm hoping they won't do it, since the reveals for the past few games have been good enough imo with showing the new starter trio and shots from the region as a whole.

@Bolt_Strike @VoidofLight We know that when Sun/Moon were revealed that BotW (and hence also Switch) was scheduled for 2016. It’s possible that the limited Sun/Moon news in February 2016 was anticipating a Spring 2016 Switch reveal. We got the normal February news in May, shortly after Nintendo delayed BotW (and Switch) to 2017.

NoA’s YouTube channel has been very inactive recently. Last week’s only uploads were a late upload of Path of Radiance’s NSO trailer and a South Park Fortnite collaboration meanwhile there’s nothing this week so far.

@Grumblevolcano @VoidOfLight This, plus Game Freak was also promoting the release of RBY on VC (actually this might be the more likely reason than BotW) which released that day. They wanted people to replay those games while waiting for SM, and notice the one thing they did confirm about the games was that you could transfer Pokemon from RBY to SM via Bank. I think they held off on any details about SM because they thought it would overshadow RBY VC.

Well... this came out of the freaking blue. Kind of a shame that physical cartridges for the game are no longer complete unless they do a revision.