So, the February Nintendo Direct, as predicted by industry insiders and leakers alike, didn't happen, what a surprise. Instead, we will have to wait until June to learn more about what's in store for the Nintendo Switch in its last year. And this really will be its last year, at least without a successor on the market, according to President Furukawa on Twitter.
Nintendo is going to announce the successor in the current fiscal year. But since Nintendo's fiscal year starts in the beginning of April, this could mean that we might have to wait until early 2025 for that announcement. We will have to see. It all does align with my personal expectations, however, so I'm content. And I'm certainly not in a hurry...
You may recall my post about the next Nintendo Direct back in February, where I've already said that we shouldn't expect any news about the next Nintendo system, that it will be one more Nintendo Direct focused on upcoming Nintendo Switch games in 2024. And this turned out to be right, where it's very smart of Nintendo to do this sort of expectation management in advance.
Well, I didn't predict the Direct to happen as late, but they already had set their line-up for the first half of 2024, with games like Princess Peach: Showtime!, Endless Ocean: Luminous, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and finally Luigi's Mansion 2 HD. So, in hindsight it makes sense that they've skipped the February Direct.
Right now I'm very curious about who is developing the last of the bunch. GREZZO has remade Luigi's Mansion for the Nintendo 3DS and if they are working on the sequel as well, then this will mean that we're probably not going to see remakes of Oracle of Ages & Seasons anytime soon... We will know in June, but the Oracle games are really on top of my wishlist for remakes, where we should prepare for a Nintendo Direct full of remakes and remasters. And if we're not getting the Oracle games, then The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD are still there as a possibility, like they've always been for the past seven years. But if there's going to be something for Zelda fans in the Direct, it will likely be an old game returning.
A big topic for the last stretch of the Nintendo Switch will be the Metroid Prime series. Will Metroid Prime 4 still release for the Nintendo Switch, or will it be one of the launch titles for the Nintendo Switch successor, or maybe even both? Will we still see remasters of Metroid Prime 2 and Metroid Prime 3? I expect some of these questions to be answered in the upcoming Nintendo Direct, but not necessarily all of them. For example, they could show us a teaser for Metroid Prime 4, without showing any gameplay. And if it's going to be a Switch 2 title only, then they might not show it at all.
I also think that Xenoblade will be a topic, because they have released those Nintendo Warriors games on a biannual cycle and a Xenoblade Warriors simply makes the most sense at this point, especially after the conclusion of the trilogy. And they might also finally port Xenoblade Chronicles X over to the Switch, just to have the entire series on the system.
Rest assured that there is still some life left in the Nintendo Switch. And if it keeps selling as it does right now, then it may even get close to the numbers of the Nintendo DS, Nintendo's best-selling system so far.
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