Future Nintendo Direct?

Wolf_Lbh · June 15, 2018

Typically Nintendo does this thing where they announce stuff they consider to be not their biggest hitters at E3 and then they have their own announcement stream later to unleash the big guns. This year at E3 they talked about three things:
1) A Pokemon Yellow Remake - the most iconic pokemon game of all time remade for a console but it has the ability to interface with pokemon go so I'm worried the mobile gaming aspect of it will give it cancer but hopefully the strong source material and the legendary original 151 pokemon will make it difficult to suck.
2) A new Super Smash bros game - it will have every character ever used will be present and an absurd number of stages and some very nice fighting mechanics. God only knows what characters they have kept under wraps and who we might see in dlc (botw champions anyone?). Based on what we have seen so far I'm thinking this is going to be absolutely fantastic and possibly the best super smash of all time.
3) A crap ton of good ports like the DBZ fighting game (arguably one of the best fighting games in a longggg time).

So what could possibly be talking points for their own stream if they are dropping bombs like this at E3? Things I think we may see are:
1) Metroid 4 - we saw a splash screen for this a year ago so hopefully some progress has been made since then and we didn't hear a word about it at E3 but they did add Ridley to Smash and announce it as a huge reveal so hopefully that means they are aware of how excited people are for Metroid content and were saving it for the Direct.
2) The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey sequels. Both games have amazing game engines built and both barely scratched the surface of what it would be possible to do with those game engines so by reusing those game engines (and a lot of the graphical assets as well possibly) it should be possible to release amazing sequels without waiting multiple years. For example Majora's Mask was released only 1 year after Ocarina of Time because it used the same game engine and many of the same assets and is considered to be one of the best Zelda games. Obviously game making has become exponentially more complicated since the days of the Nintendo64 but I'm hoping that as 1 year has already passed since BotW came out Nintendo may have something in mind for the end of 2019 (which would probably get delayed to the end of 2020 or early 2021) but perhaps they would have something to show after a year of development time with the game engine already built.
3) Pokemon rpg - Nintendo has said in addition to the Pokemon yellow remake they are working on a full fledged console version of the next Pokemon game.
4) Zelda Remakes/HD versions - I'm really hoping that someday we will see a remade Skyward Sword with some game mechanics improved. Considering how poorly the Wii U sold and how many other games got ported over we might even see Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD get switch ports.
5) The Virtual Store - Nintendo said the switch would be able to play up to GameCube era games so isn't it about time they started making those games available? Nintendo did say they would be giving it a new name and many people took that to mean the entire store wouldn't be available but that wasn't what they were trying to say.
6) Console improvements - Only being able to backup your saves via a paid online service is bs so the ability to backup/save to an external hard drive really needs to happen. Maybe a voice chat system that doesn't look like it is trying to set itself on fire is also possible now that at least one game is coming with the ability to bypass the Nintendo voice chatting ap. A Switch with more internal storage would be nice as well and Nintendo has also talked about releasing better docking systems for the console.

Overall I'm super excited for the next Nintendo stream and wondering what other people think might be coming.

Stefan Payne · June 16, 2018

You are pretty overhyped and ask to be disapointed.

I'd not expect soo much.

Just look at the WiiU. It had a great concept but was killed by Shitty Marketing (looked too much like a Wii) and crappy hardware as well as high prices. Partly because of the overbuilt Gamepad.

And for that you didn't get a Metroid and the Zelda Game came out after it was discontinued...

skywake · June 16, 2018

@Wolf_Lbh
Not reading that whole thing but as someone who has followed Nintendo closely for more than a decade? I wouldn't expect too much from the next direct. E3 for Nintendo where they build interest into the holiday period. They'll focus heavily on one or two games that they think will drive sales for the holidays. The typical yearly cycle is something along the lines of this:

First Direct of the year: A broad outline of what the year will have. Often announcements for stuff they'll cover in more detail at E3

Pre-E3 Direct: Cleaning up loose ends. Eg the Direct from a few months ago which had a lot of 3DS games, notice no 3DS at E3?

E3 Direct: It used to have to cover everything, now it doesn't. Even so E3 is still almost purely about building hype going into the end of the year
Post-E3 Directs: Often very specifically focused on one thing which is immediately relevant

The way Nintendo usually manages things? I'd expect 2-4 Directs for the rest of this year. I'd expect they'd cover very specific and immediately relevant topics. Expect more on Smash Bros, expect more on their online services. Beyond that I wouldn't be surprised if there was some time spent on indies, third parties and the 3DS. Pokemon will probably also get something just before the release of the new game.

1 hour ago, Stefan Payne said:

I'd not expect soo much. Just look at the WiiU

I don't see what the Wii U has to do with this. Of all the things Nintendo did wrong with the Wii U I don't think their E3/Direct strategy was one of them. The way they handle things now is significantly improved over what we used to get during the Wii/DS era. Most of that was developed while the Wii U was tanking on shelves.

Wolf_Lbh · June 16, 2018

3 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

You are pretty overhyped and ask to be disapointed.

I'd not expect soo much.

Just look at the WiiU. It had a great concept but was killed by Shitty Marketing (looked too much like a Wii) and crappy hardware as well as high prices. Partly because of the overbuilt Gamepad.

And for that you didn't get a Metroid and the Zelda Game came out after it was discontinued...

You're completely wrong. How can I be overhyped about things that they have already announced and new Zelda and Mario games are obviously going to come out at some point so the only question is when we will be able to get a peek at them. I think a year of development time with the game engine and plenty of reusable assets already available is a reasonable amount of time for a teaser to mature.

What does the Wii U's marketing have to do with anything about what I just said? Also in case you haven't noticed a ton of amazing Wii U games are getting ports to the switch because the Wii U didn't sell well and now the games are selling amazingly well on the Switch because it has a large user base. Btw if you look at the Wii U's handheld tablet controller and the Switch in portable mode you might be surprised at how similar the two consoles are.

Yes the Wii U should have had a tablet free mode and the marketing killed it but the performance of the console itself was great for the price and it had a surprising amount of really good games. Also once again what the heck does the Wii U have to do with the next Nintendo Direct?