Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

I can't really blame them. Beyond the general difficulties of making a Direct, a bad E3 Direct would likely be worse for Nintendo than none at all at this point. (see: 2015)

also KirbyGCN17 won't be able to put up those crowd reaction vids at the Nintendo store so what's even the point :V

Meaning that nothing would come out until September?

Another thing likely delayed, the bigger game cards that are supposed to come out by the end of this year. But maybe that point is null because everything else is delayed.

I think the only exclusive games we are getting that haven't got a concrete date yet are bravely default 2 in September, Zelda port in October and Mario collection in November. Maybe they will push bravely default 2 to 2021 and release a pikmen 3 port instead. But I can't see us getting a new paper Mario or breath of the wild 2 in 2020. Maybe some more third party ports but we should lower our expectations for the rest of the year

@FragRed
Microsoft and Sony have both learned their lessons when it comes to releasing initial prices of consoles. They've both "lost" entire console generations based on their initial console pricing.

I have to say, it's pretty amusing watching those two behemoths tip-toeing around each other with these new console reveals.

@rallydefault I am really curious how this is all going to play out. How long can each other go before someone has to make that announcement in order to get pre-orders open? Right now they’re both drip feeding details in bigger and bigger quantities as if trying to scare the other one into laying out all their cards first.

I’m assuming the assumption is that the March Direct would provide adequate announcements to take Nintendo through until the September Direct which would then reveal games right up until March time. Problem with September is that you run the danger in not having enough time to hype up any games coming out in October and November.

@FragRed The Q1 Direct usually reveals the year anyway. E3 Direct these past few years has mostly been used to promote already announced games and to reveal new 3rd party announcements. If the 3rd party Switch support drops a lot because of next gen consoles, the E3 Direct's purpose is reduced a lot.

@FragRed

Yes but this year it didn't provide enough. There's nothing big coming after Xenoblade is there?

@Dezzy Makes you wonder what Nintendo initially planned for the first half of the year if Animal Crossing hadn’t have been delayed from last year?

@FragRed My guess is Prime 4 with the restart happening around the same time as internal decisions for Animal Crossing delay.

Lol I bet they needed to delay the June Direct because all of their biggest reveals are ports and remasters. They're like "quick, someone find something original!"

@Grumblevolcano That sounds like a nail on the head answer.

@Dezzy The question is why would that be the case. Was something cancelled internally? Or just delayed? Clearly Nintendo's management wouldn't have intended to not have a major title for the year.

@link3710

I think Nintendo have just really struggled to transition all of their teams into HD development from a situation where a lot of them were working purely on handheld games.

We should technically be getting the Wii U and the 3DS software libraries combined on the Switch. It really doesn't feel like we've got that yet.

@Dezzy Yeah, I made a giant post as to why that is. Long story short we are (at least in prior years), the issue was that the Wii U's library was incredibly sparse, we lost a number of prolific partners from the 3DS (AlphaDream, Skip LTD, etc), the 3DS library was fluffed up a lot with Wii U ports and remasters, some of the smaller 3DS / Wii U franchises have moved to the mobile space, and yes, likely a couple teams (Creatures notably) are struggling to adjust.

But the other big issue is that they planned at least another year of 3DS releases that they suddenly had to cancel as they realized it was a sinking ship. Suddenly, 2019's 3DS releases all had to be retooled or scrapped, and that's when game release volume dropped.

@link3710

Why would they plan to keep having new 3DS games into 2019? Given that the Switch is also a handheld. Makes no sense.

@Dezzy While I agree it makes no sense, Nintendo officially stated they were cancelling their remaining 3DS plans so clearly they did have them. Not to mention several remakes recently released (PMD:RT DX and Link's Awakening) likely were originally planned for 3DS before development was moved to Switch. Don't forget, Link's Awakening remake rumors stated it as on the 3DS in 2017.

While I think they were hedging their bets far too much to avoid putting all their eggs in the Switch basket and it backfired, it's anyone's guess what the real reason is. But one thing for certain is that 2019 was the first year that saw a notable dropoff in titles released from the high 30s to the high 10s.

That fits the way they marketed the Switch, between unveiling it and until some time after release, @link3710 It was supposed to be a home console that was easily portable, rather than a handheld that could be docked to TV
If their teams were set up to continue 3DS games, it might well take some adjustment to Switch them
While the current situation has obviously not helped the plans

@BruceCM Those teams are now busy on games for the 3DS successor 😉

Yeah, the Switch Lite, @gcunit.... I think they have realised it makes sense to do it that way, going forwards