Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

im excited to see what the tomodachi life direct brings! twenty minutes is a lot of information! i still think we will see a direct in february. the real question is, are we gonna see ninji return in MKW’S update in the general direct?
jokes aside, do you guys think there will be a mario kart world update this spring? if so, what do you want in it?

I'm looking forward to a possible February Direct, but I'm still not expecting to hear too many AAA announcements.

Nintendo clearly is taking their time to announce their biggest AAA games. These days, dev time for a AAA game takes almost the lifespan of a whole console generation. So for each AAA game, Nintendo only has one chance to time the launch just right. Maybe two at the most, like squeezing in TOTK. But so far, and even more so moving forward: just one new Animal Crossing, one new 3D Mario, etc.

Obviously we got lots of AA games for the Switch, and indeed the line is blurring a little bit about what you consider AA versus AAA (Fire Emblem Three Houses? Mainline Pokemon? Super Mario Wonder? Splatoon 3? Kirby's Forgotten Land? Pikmin 4?). Certainly Fire Emblem's latest game, Fortune's Weave, looks to lean more into AAA territory than AA. Yoshi's latest game also looks to contain plenty of production value for a AA game.

So it seems the standard is AA+ games filling out most of a console's life cycle while sprinkling in at least one console-defining AAA game for each IP.

Over the span of 7~ years, we only have 5 guaranteed AAA games to wait for: 3D Mario, 3D Zelda, the next Animal Crossing, Splatoon 4, and the next big Monolithsoft game. If you count Pokemon, which you should, then we also will have 2-3 AAA Pokemon games.
(Switch had 4 mainline Pokemon games, 2 new regions + 2 Legends. But now with a longer dev time, we may only get 1 new region and 1 new Legends game after ZA)
If you also count Fire Emblem, then we can add the tally to about 6-ish first-party AAA games not including Pokemon games (because Pokemon games historically have not inhibited Nintendo first-party schedule).

But that's still not a huge amount when sizing up the entire lifespan of a console generation. So Nintendo must be planning their timing very carefully, because the goal is for each AAA game to nurture the Switch 2's long-term momentum.

Jokes aside, um, I still wanna know if Ninji's being added. I'm not joking!! I need answers, Nintendo!!! (Oh, and Kamek)

@skywake Your example regarding Kirby was months apart (August 19th Air Riders Direct 1, September 12th general Direct, October 23rd Air Riders Direct 2). When Nintendo piles up Directs in multiple consecutive weeks, it's when there's no general Direct. For example:

• July 22nd 2025 - Pokemon Presents
• July 31st 2025 - Partner Showcase
• August 7th 2025 - Indie World

In this scenario, Nintendo skipped the usual June general Direct slot.

Honestly, I wouldn't say that Tomodachi Life getting it's own direct this week is indicative of there not being a General Direct for a while. Tomodachi Life is a weird game that needs a larger focus, and having singular trailers in a regular direct won't outright show why these games are special. I doubt it's a series that'll ever take up an "overview" slot in a general direct, so Nintendo is probably making a presentation to specifically talk about it- much akin to how the Tomodachi Life direct was like back when the 3DS game was announced to be coming over to the West.

This being said, don't expect a general direct of course- but this doesn't debunk the possibility of one happening.

I don't think the Tomodachi Direct rules out a general Direct for February. That being said, I could see them opting for a Partner Showcase and then doing more announcements (like a Yoshi release date) in a MAR10 video. Only problem is then they'd have to do individual Directs/announcements for June and July.

Again, don't buy into patterns and so forth and the last few years haven't stuck to this much. But generally there have been three general Directs a year. One at the start of the year to outline the first half of the year. Then one in the middle, which used to be E3, that focuses on the second half of the year. Usually the biggest of the three because big games usually target a holiday release. And finally one around September which covered the odds and ends including any Jan/Feb/Mar stuffs

So in all likelihood we'll see one general Direct before April, one around June, one around September. If they're following what they've always done. Which they aren't because Nintendo Today drops are a thing now so who knows. Even so, I still think February makes sense

Today's news so far has been the Splatoon 11.0.0 update details and Virtual Boy NSO overview trailer.

So many small updates.... it is looking more and more like the next 1st party presentation will be MAR10.

Loving the Nintendo news blowout. Still think it’s clearing out the fluff before the big stuff.

I wonder what tomorrow’s news will be, if anything? Another Mario Tennis Fever trailer? An update for Rhythm Heaven Groove? You’d be forgiven for thinking there’ll be another little news update tomorrow.

@Dev-N If the next big announcement is 3d Mario they might save it for MAR10.

I think they only NEED a big direct if there is a smash switch 2 edition or if the rumors of Ocarina remake are true. Everything else is liking too early or too small to create a need for a full direct.

The Direct is next week. Whether it’s a “normal” or Partner, I don’t know.

The amount of 1st party tidbits at this point is ridiculous. I would love for it to all be paving the way for a massive direct that didn’t have room for it, but I’m thinking a partner showcase is more likely.

I’m of two minds: there is certainly a world where I can imagine Nintendo looking at their release schedule for the next 6 months and saying, “Yea, this is enough for now.” Mario tennis, Pokopia, Yoshi, maybe even Fire Emblem (though that was mysteriously taken off their official release calendar). Maybe they can just let this one be a solid Partner Direct.

But on the other hand, you just launched a new console, and you haven’t really had a Switch 2-focused Direct since the actual reveal.

If they release a Direct next week, I hope the recent Nintendo game info dumps mean they won’t take up too much time

I think people might need to open their minds to the idea that Nintendo might be phasing out the idea of single giant "Directs" as a marketing tool. Yes, a half-hour program of reveals and trailers might make for an exciting mini-event on the customer side, but from Nintendo's perspective? Simply making announcements and releasing trailers on an individual basis, as they come up, very likely is more productive.

@metaphysician I highly doubt they'd phase out big general Directs considering how incredibly effective they are as a marketing tool. They draw millions of viewers during the livestream, and millions more watch the VOD. Individual announcements have their place, but they don't have the same draw that a Direct has

@IceClimbers You know what would be even bigger than that though? If they could get millions of people to check Nintendo Today every day constantly waiting for a big game announcement. I think their marketing team has realized that the whole reason people are tuning into the general Direct is because they're looking for a new announcement for their favorite IPs (usually a big tentpole IP), but those announcements are few and far between and they have a lot of smaller stuff they want to market too and having a livestream event that only takes place a few times a year is not enough for them. It seems like Nintendo is shifting to a drip-feed marketing strategy where the fans are hanging on Nintendo's every word waiting for that big announcement because they don't know when it's going to happen. So yeah, I can absolutely see Nintendo wanting to replace Directs with Nintendo Today. I don't think it'll be an immediate transition because that would bring backlash, it may be more of a frog in boiling water type of scenario. But I do think it'll happen because that kind of engagement is just too alluring to them.

@Bolt_Strike that is a good point! Definitely agree that it won't be instant, and maybe it won't be complete, but moving to a lot more Nintendo Today announcements could be beneficial for them.

Given that 2025 had 3 general directs, a partner showcase, and 4 long game-specific directs, I feel like we have literally zero evidence to indicate Nintendo is phasing out long directs.