Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Some preliminary predictions and expectations regarding the January Direct:

First off, it'll obviously use the rapid-fire headlines with a few spotlight focus games format with Koizumi as host again. The question is how many spotlight games there will be; the April Direct had two, while the September Direct had four. I do have suspicions as to what two of them are though.

Second, I don't think they'll reveal the vast majority of the major lineup (i.e. the "big" games for each month) like they did this year in the Switch Presentation. That was a special case because they were fully showing off the system. I expect the Direct to mostly focus on the first half of the year. I think announcements for the major games in the second half of the year will be spread out between the January Direct, the March/April Direct, and E3.

Third, I don't expect them to talk about the Switch online or VC services. I think that'll be at a separate time.

Anyways...

Direct starts off with some 3DS headlines:

• Kirby Battle Royale (NA)/Mario Party The Top 100 (EU)
• Pokemon Crystal
• Radiant Historia/The Alliance Alive/SMT Strange Journey Redux release dates
• Sushi Striker
• Dillon's Rolling Western: The Dead Heat Breakers
• Detective Pikachu

That's it for 3DS headlines. Tha vast majority of that will hit before April. I think localizations of Etrian Mystery Dungeon 2 and Yokai Watch 3 get announced in the March/April Direct.

Kirby Star Allies gets a spotlight focus. Gets a March date probably. Fire Emblem Switch gets a proper unveiling as another spotlight focus.

Switch headlines:

• Yoshi gets a trailer and proper title, Summer 2018 release
• Bayonetta 1+2
• Dragon Quest Builders
• Project Octopath Traveler, given an April/May release
• Wolfenstein II
• Fe
• Payday 2
• Pac-Man CE2+
• Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection
• Unexpected 3rd party ports
• New Joy-Con colors
• New amiibo

Then a couple unannounced 1st party games.

Basically not expecting some massive blowout, but it should be solid regardless!

Good, Bad and Ugly of 2017!

The Good: Doki Doki Lit. Club. Just kidding, the Switch launch. I spent most of my gaming time (and then some) playing Splatoon 2, Mario, and Zelda. Can't wait to double up on Darkest Dungeon and maybe get a surprise port of Nier.

The Bad: Releases of established series. Mass Effect and Battlefront got terrible reception by the general community.

The Ugly: As mentioned, game journalists continue to wear down the brand of the plebians. The chief probelm might be that the writers are exactly what they are: english majors first and gamers second.

@IceClimbers I think DLC/updates will also be there. Stuff like the January update for Splatoon 2, the February DLC for Fire Emblem Warriors, the January DLC for XC2, the story DLC for Mario + Rabbids, etc.

Also Mario Party The Top 100 is already out in Europe, Nintendo moved it to a few days before Christmas so I wouldn't expect it to appear.

@IceClimbers I think that's the most realistic Direct prediction I've ever seen. I was going to post one, but you basically took the words right out of my mouth so...

I've seen release dates for Kirby All Stars saying January. Which seems an odd place holder date. Specially because it said like January 24 or some weird number that definitely isn't used as a placeholder.

Maybe Kirby is a January game along with Lost Sphear, Bayonetta 1/2 is February along with Payday 2, PAC Man and Dragon Quest Builders, March is Yoshi, April is Octopath Traveller and Fe, May is Street Fighter Collection, June is Wolfenstein 2, and lots of other games littered in that are confirmed first half of 2018. Like Battle Chasers Nightwar, Fallen Legion, Blade Strangers, Monster Energy Supercross, Atelier Lydie & Suelle, Titan Quest, Portal Knights, Hollow Knight, etc...

@JaxonH Why would Kirby release on a Wednesday though? All games created by Nintendo have been Friday releases for awhile now.

@Grumblevolcano Knew I was forgetting something! DLC/updates will definitely be part of the Switch headlines. Didn't know about Mario Party! Wonder what they'll put in the European Direct in place of Kirby then.

@JaxonH I think we'd have a firm date already if Kirby Star Allies was releasing in January! Especially if the Direct doesn't happen until mid-January anyways.

@Grumblevolcano

No no no. That wasn't the date- I was just giving an example of the kind of date. As in, it was not "Jan 30" or "Jan 1st" or whatever. I can't remember the exact date I just know that it wasn't a typical placeholder date. I've seen it twice now.

@IceClimbers
Ya, you would think...

This is nothing to do with what you guys are talking about, just a question I have. I don't have Sonic Forces but I downloaded the Super Sonic DLC while it's free, so I can use it in case I ever get the game in the future. However, the icon for Sonic Forces now appears on my home screen even though I don't have the game, which bothers me slightly. If I delete the DLC now that I've downloaded it once, will I be able to download it again for free in the future if I get the game?

@Dogorilla Once you own the content you should be always be able to dl it. However if you just open and close a few other games it will get pushed further down to where you won't see it.

@IceClimbers
Pretty safe predictions there. I tend to agree except on two points.

1. With the number of game announcements for Switch that have come from nowhere? There will probably be something unknown in the next direct. Lately Nintendo can't seem to go a couple of months without surprising us with something like Doom or Bayonetta. I don't expect them to suddenly go back to Wii U era "nothing new" Directs.

2. The VC and online will come up at some point. Now is as good a time as any. It makes far more sense to talk about it now while the pace for gaming has slowed rather than spend time at E3 talking about it when they'd rather us focus on their big reveals

@skywake My thought was they'd talk about VC and online on it's own via press release/trailer drop/Twitter and the website being updated and not via a Direct. I believe they want these Directs almost exclusively focused on games, with the lone exceptions being amiibo, special hardware bundles, and certain accessories like Joy-Cons. I don't think they feel Directs are the appropriate place to talk about services in depth anymore.

As for the announcements, that's what those "unexpected third party ports" are for! Those could take up quite a few separate headlines on their own. I think first party wise there won't be a ton announced because I feel the unannounced stuff is for the second half of the year, which they'll talk about more in the April Direct and at E3. I feel like it'll be 1 or 2 new 1st party games maximum in the January Direct, potential eShop titles like Pushmo aside (speaking of which, I wonder when we'll see Pushmo on Switch).

Looking at the first half of the year, this could be the hypothetical "big game" lineup:

February: Bayonetta 1+2
March: Kirby Star Allies
April: Project Octopath Traveler
May: Wolfenstein II/Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection (3rd party month)
June: Fire Emblem
July: Yoshi

That's just hypothetical, but that really only leaves 5 months left uncovered. 1 or 2 of those could be third party months, and one of them could be Pokemon if that launches in 2018. That's not even accounting for Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes.

So barring doubling up in multiple months, there's really only 4ish major unknown 1st party games for the rest of the year. So again, expecting very little new on the 1st party front in the January Direct.

Hello, im Donk Of the Wild. and i just created a Discord for all things Nintendo Switch!
We do Events for Almost all Nintendo Switch games, Chat, and Have fun!
So Join the fun! [removed]

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@IceClimbers
On the first point you may be right as a general rule of thumb. With that said I think there's too much they have to said about both online and the VC for them not to have it in a presentation. A direct of some kind would be the place to do it especially if it's some kind of "Switch in 2018" January Direct

The list of titles you've outlined? Sure, if it plays out that way that could be just about all we see for the first half of the year. And if that's the case there's not much reason for them to bring up anything new that soon. But I can imagine some of those titles coming out later in the year. It's not that I'm expecting them to fill out all the gaps in our knowledge of the lineup for 2018. I'm just pointing out that there are a lot of gaps and a January Direct would be good place for some of these reveals.

I will be very surprised if there's not at least 1 major reveal in the next Direct. Koizumi has said the release momentum of 2017 will continue next year and that we can expect "non-traditional IP",so there's a lot of stuff coming that we don't know of. Plus there's the games that will be he said will be built around the Joy-con /Switch's functionalities, these could be the "non-traditional IP" or maybe not. Just yesterday Kimishima basically said we can expect games likes this too. None of the games we already know of could fit these descriptions so surely we're going to find out about something about games that do.

I'm predicting we'll get a major title revealed which will be the May /June game and 2 or 3 middle tier titles,with at least 1 of these being a game Nintendo will be banking on being a monster hit with the masses ala Wii Sports.

Where does the next Direct date usually get announced?

If a January Direct is incoming, the second week is usually when it appears. Third week is also likely.

@OorWullie If non-traditional IP does means stuff like Wii Sports, I could see some double game months to avoid making the same mistakes as E3 2008. So like for example you could have Switch Fit appearing in the same month as Fire Emblem or Yoshi.

If Nintendo are expecting to sell 20 million over the next year, they must have some big unknown titles over the first half of the year. They won't hold them back to just the second half though the biggest will be during this time of the year. They will need to sell a lot of consoles every month of 2018 so the January Direct is going to have some big blowout surprises, otherwise they are going to see a big drop in sales. Kirby and Yoshi don't sell big numbers in systems, perhaps Fire Emblem can help with sales certainly.