Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@EOTW whose cancelling Nintendo. I'm all in. I don't own a PlayStation. I own four switches, Nintendo wall paper, and a DK arcade machine. That doesn't change the fact that Nintendo's PR has absolutely sucked lately. You know if you don't have anything to show there is no need to have a direct mini. It just gets people's hopes up no matter how you phrase it..

@sixrings I think the idea is that they will start showing more minis, with only a little content in each one. My prediction is that we will see several similar directs this year. They are trying to desensitize directs specifically so people don't overhype themselves like this. Since times are very uncertain right now they don't want to announce anything too far out. If anything big gets announced it will likely come out of left field (and more likely won't be happening any time soon).

@sixrings ... Why? Wouldn't a playstation be a far better investment than a second Switch, never mind four of them?

That was a brief yet juicy Nintendo Direct Mini. That chibi 2K wrastlin' game doesn't look half bad. As an rpg fan, the SMT III HD Remaster reveal is a giga-ton announcement. And I'm glad SMT V is still in production.

Some serious goodwill for Atlus has been renewed for me.

I look forward to the next one of these Direct Minis. Next month maybe?

Yeah, it doesn't help in the current situation, @DenDen .... But there's the Pokemon stuff, that's not exactly made by Nintendo. There's Fire Emblem, similarly but they could do with a few more companies doing things like that!

@link3710 I host Nintendo lan parties with the games that will allow me to. Perhaps my frustration is partially based on how much I have invested. That said we have a great time playing the multiplayer games we are able to. So much I'd consider buying another 4 so I can have 4 V 4 splatoon. But then I need 8 copies of each game. It's really expensive. On the other hand I really don't enjoy single player gaming much anymore. So I don't need a PlayStation since they mostly have 1 player games but if xbox has free online I will be buying 4 Xboxes.

@EOTW that's fine if it's their idea to release info this way. But clearly it's a divisive strategy. I'm not the lone weirdo on here complaining. At least half of the people don't agree with that strategy and I'm sure either side won't be swayed into thinking one way is more logical than the other. I think it sucks. The end.

@sixrings Fair enough. I think it's a good aproach given the circumstances. Hype has run rampant and they need to reign it in somehow. Remaining silent for months would certainly worry me, so having mini (micro) directs is fine by me. We'll get a major announcement when they have one. That's my opinion.

Boom. Look at it this way- the Mini Direct is the best thing NIntendo has done since Animal Crossing for these reasons.

Saying that Direct was the best thing since Animal Crossing sounds like a scathing review of Paper Mario than praise for the Direct:

@jump Eh, I almost posted ‘since Origami King’, but I know that game has mixed reviews and the Mario Remasters would be better, so... yeah.

I dunno how an 81 Metacritic score is mixed but okay.

The thing I’ve come to realise recently is that you don’t need a Direct for the big Nintendo games. People are going to go to YouTube to view the next Breath Of The Wild 2 trailer or Advert for a Mario Collection. What a Direct is really good for is tying other game trailers and adverts to the goodwill for those big games. Would Splatoon have made such an impression if it hadn’t been announced in an E3 Direct? Did Shovel Knight benefit being next to Smash announcements? Countless indies, smaller quirky games, and even lower tier Nintendo games have been a bigger deal because eyes looking for Mario and Zelda have seen them. If people are in a good mood because of something special, they’ll be more receptive to things they would normally ignore.

For me, the games in the most recent Direct were all good little announcements, but I found my attention lax on them because of the lack of big announcement- also I question if they needed to be announced now instead of waiting? The Shin Megami Tensei games are at least 6 months away if not over a year. I’m pretty sure I’ll have forgotten everything from this direct within a fortnight.

@MrGawain Well yeah, Ninty have managed to release big name games with hype for decades without the need of Directs but the Directs have a certain level of ceremony and event feel to help hype them more so and connect with fans.

The Directs (and to a lesser extent the Treehouse) are one of the few things Ninty has managed to excel at in terms of marketing in the modern industry. Just look at the frustration from fans at the lack of true Directs in recent months.

@jump it would be interesting to hear the view of someone in the industry who works in marketing. For the bigger 1st party games, to me I think doing individual announcements has some logic to it. Combine that with partner show cases and nindies for games which couldn't generate enough hype on their own and that could be how Nintendo plan to do stuff in the future.

Of all the games we think are in development, which do we think would benefit from a Direct rather than a shadow drop?

BOTW2
Odyssey 2
Mario Collection
Mario 3D World
Metroid Prime Trilogy
Metroid Prime 4
Splatoon spin off
Pikmin 3
Pikmin 4

@MarioBrickLayer I don’t like that question, my favourite part of the Directs is thinking it’s nearly finished and then they bust a nut to show off a surprise big title. Whilst Zelda, Mario etc are more than capable of having just a trailer release to garner attention but when they sneak them into the Direct is the most exciting option for me.

I think Directs are great to, having all those announcements packaged up is exciting! I hope they get back to doing them, I'm just speculating that I don't think they will. I think there are reasons for them not to, but it would be good to hear from someone who works in Marketing to get their view.

@MarioBrickLayer what exactly are you expecting to hear?

Most marketing departments at companies I've worked for are largely responsible for organizing events, ensuring consistency with branding, social media, overviewing marketing material being made etc whilst the actual strategy of the marketing (who to aim it at, when to do it etc) is normally decided by the directors board with input from the marketing department.

@jump I'd like to understand the perspective of an individual Nintendo game announcement vs a Direct. If Paper Mario had been part of a Direct would they expect some of the hype to be lost in the noise about other releases? If they can demonstrate a game gets more hype and coverage as a stand alone announcement then they might not do 1st party directs anymore. They should be able to report on that by looking at social media, search results, number of articles etc.

I would expect the marketing director to set the strategy of how they market their products? with board approval/sign off?

I agree with @jump. I love Directs. There's just something special about them... it's like Christmas.

Going back to this Direct, I just still do not understand what the hell the point was. What is Nintendo doing? I had low expectations, but it was just nothing.

They could have made it so much better too and with ease (although I don't know what's going on behind the scenes). Seriously, if they had just added No More Heroes 3, Crysis (saving the couple of trailers released the other week for this Direct), Bravely Default 2 and Doom Eternal, then I think people would have been more forgiving of it. Especially if it was topped off with a Mario collection announcement.

Either Nintendo is in big trouble and they literally have nothing or they're staggering announcements and Directs. If it's the latter, I don't think the strategy is working.

One has to wonder pre-Covid what their plans were and, in particular, what they were going to do at E3.