Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Nintendo's decision to hold off a general Direct may backfire. It's inevitable people's expectations rise as time goes on. This certainly doesn't apply to everyone, especially us older fans who have learned to tame our expectations with Nintendo. However, if they fail to "meet the hype", which isn't guaranteed, many people are going to be disappointed. Nintendo, perhaps more than any other company in the game, does hold the cards to pull it off, though.

One thing I am curious about: Since development is no longer split between handheld and home console divisions, why haven't we seen a significant amount of first-party support? In terms of Nintendo games, 3 years of the Switch left a little to be desired.

@Maxz Maybe the April 2020 update mentioned here is more than just balancing?

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a...

@Maxz I think a DLC update to Splatoon 2 would be a much better choice indeed. Even if they did not originally plan for such - it would be a way revive a game I think they foolishly let slide, without dividing the player base between new and existing players on the same platform.

I also think, for the same reason, we wont see Mario Kart 9 on Switch, but instead they might give us a big DLC for Mario Kart 8DX. Even Mario Odyssey - if they want more Mario Odyssey content, I don't think we'll see Odyssey 2, but rather a DLC. They had considered Mario DLC as far back as the Wii and Galaxy 2, but the tech wasn't there yet. Frankly I think Nintendo's DLC offerings have been outstanding this generation and I want to see more like what we've gotten.

They can later even re-release these games with the DLC included on the card for collectors and it's a win-win for Nintendo and people who want everything physical.

@jtmnm We had a discussion on that they other day actually. Looking at the numbers, the number of games they published each year stayed about the same from 2010-2018, and then sharply decline in 2019, starting right around the time they cancelled 3DS development.

1. Studio closures - Prolific studios like Skip and AlphaDream are now gone, despite having racked up a ton of titled on the 3DS over the years. They're countering that by opening new ones (Intelligent Studios and Monolith Soft both are expanding significantly) but it'll be a few years til those new studios see a corresponding increase in volume.
2. 3DS Development - In retrospect, it seems clear that Nintendo wasn't joking about cancelling a number of planned 3DS titles. Some may have seen the projects go away completely, while others were repurposed for Switch (likely titles like Link's Awakening and PMDR:DX)
3. Development time increases - As is no surprise to anyone, HD titles take longer to develop than 3DS titles did. So not only are the former portable teams but with going HD for the first time, but there also is going to be a delay in releasing titles.
4. There has been an improvement - Take a look back at the Wii U, and you'll see that there were 70 titles published in 5 years in it's life. Switch is already at 56 in 3. While Switch has ports to boost it's number, the Wii U had a ton of small eShop and indie games they published to boost there's. Sure it's not what we imagined, but it's easy to forget how many droughts between major titles there were on the Wii U back then.
5. Dual releases - Stuff like Pushmo, Yoshi's Woolly World, Mario Maker, NES Remix, Mario & DK and more had been seeing either similar or same releases on both hardware, helping boost number of published games.

So yeah, it's sadly not as good as we hoped, but the numbers do show demonstrated improvement. Just not 3DS releases + Wii U releases volume.

@link3710 "it's easy to forget how many droughts between major titles there were on the Wii U back then." Maybe for some people, but not really for me. The Wii U and Switch eras have been like night and day. Wii U saw an interesting release for me maybe a couple times a year. With Switch there's been something I want almost every month. Often 2 or 3 times a month. Given I'm counting 3rd parties here - but that's also part of it. Not only were 1st party Wii U titles far apart, but 3rd party titles were like Shiny Pokemon levels of sparse.

@Grumblevolcano I’d either forgotten or never knew about the scheduled late April update. Again, I’m trying not to let my hopes run away with me, but it’s very interesting that they’d ‘save the date’ for such a specific time in the future, rather than just continually adjusting gameplay when they see fit.

@Heavyarms55 I’m definitely with you on Mario Kart 8DX. The original (if you can call a Wii U port ‘the original‘) continues to sell so well that it would be foolish to cannibalise its seemingly never-ending sales with a sequel. As a general rule, I think most flagship multiplayer games will see one major release per platform, which is then expanded upon over a period of time with DLC updates. It’s how Smash and Splat work, and how the actual original MK8 worked before coming with everything prepackaged in the DX version.

Odyssey I’m a little less sure about. I’d put that more in the Zelda camp of major single-player first party releases, and I think the hype built around the release of every ‘new’ Mario or Zelda game carries a different sort of gravity from multiplayer titles like Smash and Kart. The latter titles tend to establish themselves as a permanent fixture of a console’s library; the ‘go-to’ games whenever friend’s come round, or the ‘must-have’ secondary purchase whenever someone picks up a new console. They’re like a comfy sofa you can always sink back into. But the exciting big new single player titles are often the ones that drive the hype which pushes people into buying consoles in the first place. They keep the console evolving and the library ‘alive’.

I don’t think the BotW sequel would generate nearly as much hype if it were all squeezed into a fourth piece of DLC. I also feel with Odyssey that there was so much post-game stuff in the base game that only a relatively small fraction of the player base has actually seen everything the game has to offer, and players may feel reluctant to purchase ‘bonus content’ when there’s still a lot of original content that they’ve yet to work through. A promise of a whole new story in a whole new world on the other hand, might be enough to win people over, especially as it can be as different from the original Odyssey as it likes. It doesn’t have to be Odyssey 2, just ‘new Mario’.

But really, I don’t know. I also have a vague feeling about someone saying that Galaxy 2 might have been a DLC pack if DLC had really established itself at that point, and it would certainly take fewer development resources to keep working within the original Odyssey compared to starting afresh with a new game.

However, I do feel that with the ‘big guns’ of Mario and Zelda released so early into the Switch’s lifecycle, the idea that there are genuinely new games on the horizon for both series with help maintain a certain level of buzz surrounding the system’s future.

@Maxz Fair points for sure. And I do think you're right that another BOTW DLC wouldn't generate the hype that BOTW2 is making.

I think the difference between BOTW 2 and a Mario Odyssey two is design. Even from what little we know, BOTW 2 seems to be a whole new story and very possibly feature playing as Zelda and I expect Zelda to play different than Link - I think that was heavily implied in what we've been shown. But Mario Obyssey would be essentially the same game with new worlds. Even if they added more playable characters, most Mario characters play generally the same. So, rather than releasing it as new game, releasing it as a DLC would make sense to me. Kind of like New Super Luigi U was a DLC first. And like that game, and the Torna expansion to Xenoblade 2, it could also get a stand alone release if they wanted to.

And also looking at the DLC in Fire Emblem and the planned DLC in Pokemon, I think it's safe to say Nintendo knows how to do good single player DLC. Even the single player DLC for Splatoon 2 was very meaty.

@Heavyarms55 It’s very true that practically every major first party Nintendo game seems to receive some sort of DLC update these days, and so far Odyssey has received... Balloon World. Which is not to knock it! I actually think it’s a really neat way of re-engaging players with the environments and bringing light community elements to the single player experience. But it’s definitely not a meaty lore-stuffed expansion in the same way Splatoon 2’s Octo upgrade.

One thing that would make a potential MK8 or Odyssey expansion fairly unique is the time since the original release. Most Nintendo titles seem to get their content added in stages over a certain period after launch, with the majority of paid DLC additions being released within a year. Smash has stretched this with the surprise announcement of 7 more characters over the original 5, but there were no significant gaps after launch as the new content tried to ride the wave of the initial hype. On the other hand, it’s been well over two years since Odyssey’s release (Oct 2017) and coming up to three for Mario Kart (Apr 2017).

By some black magic, Kart continues to sell as if it were a new game, regularly appearing near the top of the all format charts (despite most of the content dating all the way back to 2014’s Wii U entry), and it’s because of these phenomenal legs (phwoah) that DLC would make so much sense over a new game. Odyssey doesn’t seem to have quite the staying power, but there’s also no arguing with the original install base. 16.6 million is nothing to be sniffed at.

In either case though, a major DLC expansion after this period of time would be be unprecedented, wouldn’t if? I mean, not unlikely, but unprecedented, as in, not done before. Are there any other examples of Nintendo games getting sizeable updates or DLC packs several years after release? The only example I can really think of is AC: New Leaf getting the update after amiibo and Happy Home Designer became a thing, but I’m not sure that counts.

Anyway yeah, if it were me, I think I’d definitely work on DLC for Kart precisely because no-one seems to have realised it’s such an old game, and it clearly still has an active user base. For Odyssey though, I’d put my efforts into a new title, simply because I think the prospect of a ‘new Mario game’ would have a lot of people salivating. It was arguably the ‘Mario and Zelda’ combo that generated a lot of the Switch’s initial momentum, so being able to double down on that within the console’s life would be pretty special. It might take a fair bit more time to develop than a DLC pack, and potentially not be ready for a year or so (even if they’ve been working on it since Odyssey originally released), but even just as ‘a thing on the horizon’, I think it’d have a lot of pull.

But that’s just me, and I need to be able to differentiate ‘what I’d do’ from ‘what might happen’, because... well, I’m not Nintendo, and my dad doesn’t work there either. A DLC pack for Odyssey is still definitely conceivable, even if it wouldn’t be my choice. And I certainly wouldn’t complain either.

@Maxz You're right it would be rather unprecedented - with ACNL being the only example I can think of of a game that got a major DLC addition after a long time. I think we all know trying to guess what's likely with Nintendo is a fool's errand but I do think there's still a good chance for these games on Switch to get these potential DLC additions. One thing seems clear to me is that Nintendo has been doing new things with Switch they have changed some of their older bad habits.

Oh I know what could happen they could throw a surprise and bring out a all new smash.

Or a Virtual Boy Mini with native support for 8K. Let’s let our imaginations run wild!

Nintendo could be planning their official closure announcement. I mean they've been doomed for at least a decade now. Probably more.

It's been a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion. The quality is mixed, and the value for money is even more mixed.

The Breath of the Wild DLC for example is great value for money in terms of the sheer amount of content you get, but at the same time it's not very original, and heavily reuses assets from the main game.

Xenoblade 2 DLC on the other hand is completely original material, that's very high quality, but is significantly lower value for money than the main game is.

I still think the best DLC Nintendo have ever done by a long way was the DLC tracks for Mario Kart 8 when it was a Wii U game. That's way up there with the Witcher 3: Blood and Wine as being the absolute peak of value per dollar of DLC.

Either way though, I doubt they'll do more DLC for old games at this point. I've gotta imagine that it sells a lot less than the main retail releases do.

We could see a Direct next week. Apparently the Japanese youtube Direct site was updated yesterday, so we could see 1 next Thursday. Here's hoping anyway

Direct on MAR10 day is possibly happen.

The coronavirus may have affected Nintendo's plans for this year. May be why they are relying on DLC flr their games and promoting their old games. There was possibly going to be a direct in February but it was put for presentation in March. Because of game delays due to the coronavirus there wouldn't be as much in the direct so they are having to edit and cut back parts of the direct.

@Welshland

The entire last page of this thread was about that. Yes, it's probably happening next week.

I dunno if the 1-week before thing is necessary though. It could be on tuesday instead to coincide with MAR10 day.

I really don't mind the silence actually. The longer they wait, the more they can announce during a Direct.

@Heavyarms55 I think the situation for Nintendo nowadays is mostly a case of:

• If game has significant online multiplayer (e.g. Mario Kart, Smash, Splatoon) then DLC/updates so the online community isn't split between multiple games
• If game's focus is local competitive multiplayer (e.g. Mario Party) then sequels
• If game is single player only or has single player and local co-op only then DLC/expansions unless the scale becomes too big for a DLC/expansion of which a sequel happens

They clearly could have done DLC for Mario Odyssey though. Just 1 extra world wouldn't have been too hard for them. I would've personally liked to see them flesh out that medieval castle world properly.

My guess is that they didn't bother because they'd just rather put that time and energy into a sequel because a full retail release tends to sell more than DLC does.