Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Only five months out now.

Kind of hoping Fantasy Life i gets a confirmed physical release at the June Direct and won't be digital only.

@Magician A physical version has technically already been confirmed considering digital only releases mention "Nintendo eShop" on the release date screen.

See the difference between World of Goo 2 (12:40) and Fantasy Life i (13:58) release date screens for example.

@Grumblevolcano Certainly an optimistic perspective. But many of the games in that Direct have had physical preorders open for months now. Other games have had their releases come and gone already. With Fantasy Life i being one of my most anticipated Switch exclusives of 2024, I'm a little anxious about the lack of preorders for it.

@Magician Fantasy Life i does release in October though, Fall/Holiday physical preorders usually open around May/June.

The last general Nintendo Direct was 8 months ago, in September last year. That's about 2/3 of a year. We're not expecting another one until June, which means an even longer gap between general Nintendo Directs. 2020 aside, this could be one of the longest waits between general Nintendo Directs since the Switch has released. 3-5 months is the wait for general Directs a lot of times, this is significantly higher!

On a side note, I thought that Direct was awesome. Most of it wasn't great, but the final reveal (Paper Mario TTYD remake) single-handedly made it one of the best Directs of all time

@PikminMarioKirby

2018 had a March direct instead of Feb, but since then there have only been 3 exceptions to Feb/Jun/Sep general directs (which I guess is technically half the years since then) — All of 2020, June 2022, and Feb 2024. So technically a longer gap than 2022, but really just a 'one direct gap'.

For the September 2023 Direct I was honestly going in just wanting details about Peach game and was surprised at how much else they gave us given the insanely packed June 2023 direct.

@FishyS The September to February wait is the longest, so since this year didn't have a general Direct in February (or any month until June), it makes this one longer than the February to September wait from 2022. But yeah both are just missing one main Direct, so it's essentially the same thing. This one just happens to be longer.

Yeah they did end up giving some Peachtime there, that was one of the best parts of it, the abilities are so cool! The June 2023 Direct was one of my favorites (focused on Mario and Pikmin) as well, and because of how good that was I wasn't expecting much out of the September Direct besides trailers for the already-announced games. Thankfully, Nintendo still had a really good show with Paper Mario announcement, and also the Super Mario RPG and Peachtime trailers.

Very good news, all previous Direct NSO updates are now 100% completed. The Japan exclusive GB game announced in the February 2023 Direct is out now for Japan NSO as part of a GB wave.

• Super Mario Land
• Alleyway
• Baseball
• Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (Japan only)

@Grumblevolcano We'll likely learn what's next for NSO in the next Direct!

Anyways surprised Super Mario Land took this long. Cool to see it!

If we're getting a new NSO roadmap, I'm really hoping for Zero Mission, Sacred Stones, and Pokemon gens 1 and 2 to link with the stadium games.

Gonna echo the sentiment that we'll be getting another NSO roadmap next Direct to close out the current Switch's lifecycle. As for what those games could be, I've got some thoughts myself:

Metroid Zero Mission: Perhaps the most obvious choice of the lot. It's a highly beloved remake, its been released on Virtual Console in the past, Fusion is already on NSO (the first post-launch GBA game at that) and hell: they found references to it in Fusion's NSO port back when that originally came out in MARCH of last year. Suffice to say, if any other GBA game is coming to NSO, its absolutely going to be this one.
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones + Kirby's Nightmare in Dreamland: Two seemingly easy locks for the service given how both Blazing Blade and Amazing Mirror already made their way over last year.
Wario Land 4: Not as confident on this one given how we've only got Wario Land 3 in terms of Wario Land games on NSO but given how popular WL4 is within the general Nintendo/gaming space, I imagine it'll probably come over sooner rather than later.
Grab-Bag: There honestly aren't THAT many GBA titles left that aren't either on NSO already or a part of Switch collection so here's a handful of smaller-scale games that I think miiiiiiiiight come over too:

• Drill Dozer
• Mega Man & Bass
• WarioWare Twisted
• Klonoa Empire of Dreams
• Mario Party Advance
• Mario Tennis Power Tour/Mario Golf Advance Tour
• Gunstar Super Heroes

They usually also have one last MAJOR NSO announcement at the end of these segments as well (Goldeneye and Earthbound being the prime example) and for GBA, there are two options:
A. Pokemon Gens 1, 2 and 3 (highly unlikely but you never know)
OR
B. An officially translated version of Mother 3 (not expecting this in a million years but it'd be the perfect capstone for the Switch generation if you ask me )

It came to mind that Just Dance completely deconfirms the first week of June. Considering Just Dance appeared in the June Direct for 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2023 it's pretty much guaranteed that the June Direct is happening after June 10th as the Ubisoft Forward event would be where Just Dance 2025 is announced and then it would appear in the Direct.

Makes sense. I bet the direct will be relatively late in June.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah it didn't seem likely to be the first week anyways, so looks like we're looking at 2nd or 3rd full week

Supposedly the leaker who claimed Nintendo is making a Zelda Zelda game is hinting this could be part of the June Direct.

If there ever was a "system seller" for NSO, then a never-before-localized Mother 3 would probably be it 😅

You could think of a reason that "deconfirms" any week in June. At the end of the day, it's going to break some of these fan made "rules", it's just a matter of which ones.

@Sigran102 less a fan rule and more (basic) statistical analysis of past Nintendo behavior. Your point is fair, but since we focus on what Nintendo usually does, not shockingly these directs usually end up being one of the short-list of dates we don't rule out. Considering the name of this thread, feels like a fair thing to try to predict 😆

@FishyS Yeah, definitely fair to try and predict. I'm just saying that there's not a single date in June that satisfies every prediction people have made here, so I don't think anything can be completely deconfirmed. Nintendo is going to break their patterns one way or another. It could be the just dance pattern, it could be the summer game fest pattern, it could be the pattern of no directs in the release week of a big game. I just think we shouldn't be so confident in what patterns can't be broken and what ones can.

I don’t see any problem for 12.6.24 (or 6.12.24)

Sony has a big meeting on Thursday 2:30am - 4am UK time (Wednesday 9:30pm - 11pm eastern time), it's a long shot but maybe there's Zelda movie info there.