Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@teo_o There is something really fishy going on with nintendo. They are doing this for publicity. The hate I've seen for Nintendo from some people in Twitter over this is ungodly. Either there is infighting at nintendo, or gosh darn, there is a big announcement imminent. Or direct.

@DannyBoi You mean the same etikons where it came out that Erika's family didn't approve of them and most of the money was going to the guy running them?

@Bolt_Strike

I reckon a big trailer for the Bowser's Fury part in January, and then a couple more right before release.

@Bolt_Strike We knew very little about Animal Crossing (the big January - March game for 2020) before February 20th (a month before launch) so at the latest I'd guess a trailer around January 12th. I'd go with these 3 as the most likely outcomes (in no particular order):

• General Direct on December 17th (just before the Sephiroth presentation)
• General Direct on January 7th
• Standalone trailer on January 12th

@DannyBoi sadly Nintendo is again arrogant, like during when the Wii era, when there are very sucefull.

Please add GBA games to NSO. NES and SNES games have been re-released countless times. Nintendo needs to add new retro selections to its online service. It’s baffling why they didn’t do virtual console for the Switch considering how successful it was.

@Grumblevolcano Wouldn't be too surprised if Nintendo holds out until March for another Direct. Everything up until the release of 3D World + Bowser's Fury could be done via trailers. The Sephiroth presentation obviously is noting more than that character.

@link3710 Is this captain Alex we are talking about? That was the guy selling them who got a cease and desist and told to stop selling etikons. Wasn't he donating the money to charity?

@DannyBoi Yeah, but he was selling the shells for around 3x the normal price for a custom shell and only donating 10%. People figured out that he was still making twice the profit of normal shell sellers, even after donating some, plus the family wasn't okay with what he was doing. Plus Nintendo C&D'd it in the middle of all that. It was a bit of a mess.

@FragRed I'd wager we won't get another direct until June (if E3 happens) or September (otherwise).

They'll definitely have something to reveal before E3, we know nothing of what's coming and they'll have adapted to the pandemic to get at least something else out in the Spring. Whether they have enough for a full Direct or if they're going to just do a random social media reveal is the more interesting question.

@link3710 They could always do more partner showcase directs instead while they just drop first party game trailers as and when they decide to reveal them. Seemed to have worked well for Nintendo second half of the year so why not just continue down that road?

@Bolt_Strike Maybe. I suspect we'll see TPC announce something though, and otherwise we'll just see a major rush of 3rd party news and they'll keep pushing that out up to E3. I'm still highly skeptical of all the leaks claiming that next year will be packed with 1st party stuff. I'm thinking we'll see slightly more than this year (Probably an IS game, Kirby, a Grezzo remaster, multiple Pokemon titles, something from one of the new Monolith branches, and a Camelot game, probably Mario Golf). That's about 8 external games plus probably a few internally developed ones, but I suspect that they'll be almost all in the second half. Probably one in June, one in July, one in September, two in October, two in November, one in December, in addition to the likely Pokemon spin-off in April/May (probably New Pokemon Snap). So they could easily wait til E3 to reveal anything for the year.

EDIT: @FragRed Yeah, something like that would make sense.

The truth is with Nintendo trying to predict their next move is basically impossible.

A stacked first party line up makes sense in many ways (if they’ve planned for it & have the games in the pipeline). The install base is huge now, it’ll continue to grow but as PS5 gathers steam they’ll start to lose the attention of many of the prolific gaming ‘whales’ who buy games at full price at launch.

2021 might be the last best chance to make an absolute killing from games like Bayonetta 3, BoTW 2 etc. The longer they leave it the greater the likelihood those games launch to unfavourable comparisons with next gen games and (even worse) on a format that’s started to go stale. Skyward Sword was a late Wii release and sold poorly relative to what it would have done 3 years before.

Then again maybe a mid gen “pro” refresh really is around the corner and Switch has its best years ahead of it...

@FragRed I think Partner Showcases are going to stay whatever happens for general Directs, they said last Partner Showcase of the year for October which suggests there's more in 2021. Having a setup like this would work fine for a typical year:

January - General Direct or Partner Showcase
February - Partner Showcase or General Direct (whichever one isn't in January)
March - Indie World
April - Partner Showcase
May - Partner Showcase
June - General Direct
July - Partner Showcase
August - Indie World
September - General Direct
October - Partner Showcase
November/December - Indie World (in one of those months)

And throw in franchise specific Directs where needed.

@Grumblevolcano Welp, looks like there’s that indie Direct you predicted, airing tomorrow.

Nintendo anounce a Indie World Showcase Presentation for tommorow at 9 am/12 pm with a15 minutes duration.

How often and close is this followed by a true full fledged direct (if any)?
I'm sure someone here knows the statistics

@teo_o Usually around 2 weeks gap between indie event and Direct (not always full one):

• August 30th - September 13th 2017
• March 8th - March 20th 2018 (Direct came before Indie event)
• August 28th - September 13th 2018 (Direct was delayed a week due to earthquake)
• January 23rd - February 13th 2019 (Indie event was Europe Indie Highlights)
• August 19th - September 4th 2019
• March 17th - March 26th 2020 (Direct was a mini)

@teo_o @Grumblevolcano
Indie World
December 27, 2018 - February 13th, 2019 (Direct)
December 10, 2019 - March 26th, 2020 (Direct Mini)

December is the exception to that rule, don't let it fool you. We got an Indie World the last two years around this week with no followup general direct. Both times there was another indie event before the next direct as well.

If I could have only 1 wish for tomorrow it would be guacamelee 3. If I had one realistic expectation it would be a release date for silksong and axiom verge 2.