Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Whilst I can see Ninty porting the likes of Wind Waker, Twilight Princess etc to plug holes in the schedule but for someone reason Ninty who were outsourcing ports before to other companies have decided to largely do them in the inhouse on the Switch so if they keep that mentality it will put a strain on the resources still.

@dionysos283 I don't think they will release nothing. As I said, it could just be they are both staggering releases and announcing them at the very last minute.

Who knows though? Their whole strategy has been bizarre this year. I'm just trying to make sense of it all.

@BruceCM I agree. I would much prefer them to be up front!

A particular issue that comes with Nintendo’s almost impenetrable silence is the fact that we don’t know to what extent COVID-19 has affected their business and progress on some titles they have scheduled for this year and beyond. Shinya Takahashi recently clarified that while the company is continuing to operate and prioritise the health and safety of staff and consumers alike, delays to products and services are entirely possible.

So, any potential blockbuster releases they had planned for the holiday season will have possibly needed around six months of development time at the time much of the world went into lockdown to slow the spread of the disease. For this reason, development at home will have undoubtedly slowed the progress of several games.

I definitely don’t think Nintendo has absolutely nothing left for the remainder of this year, but I don’t think we should expect much new content from the company. Perhaps a port or two, a couple of new games, maybe even less. We shouldn’t have the unwieldy expectation that Nintendo’s going to have a cavalcade of hype-inducing software ready for the holidays: it’s important to remember that Nintendo is a company comprised of humans who usually work in specialised studios and offices designed for game development; like many companies right now, it must have been difficult to adapt to working at home, one of the few places they would normally relax and rest.

I also think we should be more careful when believing rumours. I know more and more are gradually becoming true, especially with mini directs, but at the end of the day, many rumours can also be fabricated, as well as true. Take the Mario remasters for instance. Could they be happening? Potentially, but we don’t know because we simply don’t possess the knowledge of what they’re doing, especially now with their lack of announcements. Like any rumour, we shouldn’t immediately perceive them as concrete truths and we also shouldn’t automatically dismiss them either, if you believe there is truth present. I’d love for these remasters to exist because the 3D Mario games are some of my favourite games of all time, but they aren’t 100% guaranteed to release, as we don’t have confirmation from his creators.

I know that even with the disclaimers Nintendo presented before the partner showcase, it was pretty underwhelming in the grand scheme. The Cadence of Hyrule DLC looks interesting, especially with the third pack were you assume control of Skull Kid. Rogue Company looks decent, but it seems rather similar to other titles in the multiplayer third-person shooter genre. WWE 2K Battlegrounds looks pretty ugly and the chibi art-style looks somewhat uncanny and creepy to me, but it could be enjoyable as arcade wrestling games can be a blast with friends: it’s the stiff animations and emotionless expressions that deter me from predicting it will be for sure. SMT III Remaster and SMT V looked great, seeing V was really exciting considering we’ve barely seen anything from it since the Switch Presentation. But in the end, it was eight minutes in length and there were no first-party announcements. But third party developers have created incredible content on Switch and bolstered the library and we knew of these limitations before it was uploaded.

I found it absurd that some were predicting 3D Mario remasters and BotW 2 and Metroid Prime 4 and Smash reveals when they understood it was a brief presentation focused on a cluster of third-party games. I know the direct wasn’t great or exciting: besides SMT it had no impact on the viewers. But it doesn’t deserve this much hate and toxicity when we could kind of foresee it would carry limited hype. Nintendo’s silence is driving me insane too, but we have to understand that the world is steeped in a pandemic currently and they are enduring a difficult time like the rest of us. At least we can attend to our enormous backlogs, so I suppose this situation has some sort of silver lining.

@NintendoWiiDS "WWE 2K Battlegrounds looks pretty ugly and the chibi art-style looks somewhat uncanny and creepy to me,"

Yeah, it looks more like a mobile game, the women in particular are really bad. I thought All Stars had a good art style of caricature without losing the feel of WWE muscle posturing.

@NintendoWiiDS I think you're right, I expect releases for 2020 to be limited to Mario (2 releases - 3D World + 3D Collection) and one other game, possibly Pikmin 3, if we're lucky we get a new IP for Chritmas too, but I don't see any chance of Metroid 4, BOTW2 etc being released this year, if any of those games are releasing in 2021 between January and March I would expect us to know before November though.

I think Nintendo are sitting on 10 games/collections which could be ported and hit 5 million sales in their first year, some of these would sell much more. Some of these probably aren't real, but I think would sell well if released:-
1. Windwaker
2. Twlight Princess
3. Skyward Sword
4. A Link Between Worlds
5. Metroid Prime Trilogy
6. Super Mario 3D World
7. Super Mario 3D Collection (64, Sunshine, Galaxy 1 + 2)
8. New Super Mario Collection (New Super Mario Bros + Wii + 2)
9. Pikmin 3
10. Super Smash Bros Collection (original + Melee + Brawl + Wii U/3DS version)

As I said, I'm not saying I expect all of these to released, but I'm certain if they were released each one would sell very well.

@MarioBrickLayer 5 million in the first year seems too ambitious. I don't think all the Pikmin games combined have sold 5 millions and A Link Between Worlds only sold 4 million on the 3DS for example.

@jump I know what you're saying, but Links Awakening sold more than 4 million copies in less than 6 months, New Horizons became the best selling Animal Crossing game of all time in 2 months.

I don't think sales on previous systems are an indicator of how well a game will sell on Switch, it's doing insanely well. It will be getting close to 70 million units sold soon!

I think Pikmin 3 might appeal to some casual gamers?

WWE Battlegrounds looks alright to me. It's made by the same people who did NBA Playgrounds, which seems to have its share of fans, although I have never personally tried it. So it could be ok.

WWE All Stars is one of my favourite WWE games in the last decade or so (whenever it was released), so I just hope it's close to as being as good as that. Athough that doesn't say a lot - I'm one of those people who thinks the WWE games died when SvR 2008 was released and never fully recovered after that (as opposed to those who think the series just died when 2K took over).

There's a gap in the market as far as wrestling games are concerned. They used to be one of my favourite types of games, whether its over the top arcadey stuff like All Stars or more serious stuff like Fire Pro Wrestling, WCW nWo Revenge, WWF No Mercy, Here Comes the Pain, SvR 2006 and so on.

@MarioBrickLayer Whilst I think all of them would sell decently, I would only expect the two Mario collections to even have a chance of selling 5 million in the first year.

The Zelda games definitely would not. Metroid as a series has not had a single game break 3 million in its lifetime let alone 5 million. Pikmin as a series has barely gotten past 5 million sales as a whole. 3D World might benefit due to a larger audience on Switch but I think people who have not yet brought a Mario game on Switch would be more likely to flock to Odyssey so I am unsure if 3D World could do it. And I can't see Smash compilation ever happening if for no other reason that I am not entirely sure there would be an audience for it.

I read someone posted that a general Direct usually follows a third party presentation (Although that didn’t happen in March). Is there a decent chance of a shadow drop announcement this week or an announcement of a general Direct taking place tomorrow?

Probably not.

@MS7000 as of the 31st March, Links Awakening has sold over 4 million copies (4.4m I think) and it only released in September last year! So I really do think these games could sell really well.

I think you're right about a Smash collection not happening.

@Don Don't get your hopes up for any Nintendo first party Directs this year. I would expect any games from Nintendo to be shadow dropped trailers instead.

I think you're 100% right here, I'd bet we don't see a Direct (excluding partner minis and nindies) until E3 time next year.

@MarioBrickLayer That's fair, but I would argue that in the case of Link's Awakening, it is the first time the game has been remastered and properly available forquite an extended period of time, whilst Twilight Princess and Wind Waker would probably be almost direct ports of the HD editions from Wii U which I can't see doing as well. Skyward Sword might do well but otherwise I don't have much hope.

I would love to be wrong though; the more people that play Legend of Zelda, the better!

That's a good point, but the Wii U only sold 13.5 million units, the switch is approaching 5 times that! Plus I think a number of hard core nintendo/zelda fans would buy them again.

Links Awakening had a modern look, which I think is appealing, so I suppose how much effort Nintendo put into remastering them could be a factor. But with 5 times the audience (and growing) and the portability factor I think everything is selling far better. I have bought more games for my switch than I would have done if it wasn't portable.

I think given how cobbled together, short and limited the Mini was, it's unlikely. Otherwise they may as well amalgamated the general Direct or announcements into the Mini and made it less crap.

I think any announcements will be at least a few weeks away now.

When do you think we'll hear about the next Nintendo game? Right now I have no idea, I heard on a youtube podcast (nate the hate I think, but can't be sure) that games are always announced at least 30 days in advance in Japan due to how preorders work over there (I don't know the details) so a September release would have to be announced in next 3 weeks?

Are you expecting a shadow drop or some form of direct?

I wouldn't rule out the next Nintendo game being an eshop only title rather than a retail release. Something like NES Remix, Star Fox Guard or Pushmo.