The New Formula Nintendo Directs Don’t Work Anymore (Opinion)

That’s it then. Nintendo fans’ Christmas gifts have come three months early and, whether they liked them or not, that rounds out the announcement season for 2026. We will more than likely have to wait until at least February for any new major announcements from the Big N, and so what we have gathered from the last two days is what we will have to simmer on until then.

What we got, however, has made some people delighted and others wishing there was just one more present hiding underneath the tree. Over the past two days, we have been spoilt with two presentations: one specifically for The Legend of Zelda’s 40th Anniversary celebrations, detailing all of the ways Nintendo plans to honour this legendary franchise’s birthday, and the other being a General Nintendo Direct primarily focusing on the games coming out this winter and beyond for the Switch 2.

There probably won’t be a two-day period like this for Nintendo fans ever again. We went through an unprecedented time where, after one Direct, we could immediately look forward to another one the day after, assuming you were a Zelda fan of course (and who isn’t?). The duality of the Directs caused plenty of speculation amongst fans wondering why Nintendo had to split its announcements across two days instead of combining them into one much larger, beefier presentation. People started speculating that we may see the announcement of the next 3D Mario, the next Smash Bros., perhaps even GTA VI on the system.

Um, no.

What ended up happening quickly divided the community (shock), and for me at least, made Nintendo’s current strategy for these presentations abundantly clear. Don’t get me wrong, if you end up leaving a Direct feeling it was the best thing since sliced bread, more power to you. There were absolutely things across the presentation that I loved, and there are games shown that I cannot wait to play but judging by the reaction online I’m hardly alone in thinking that something about the modern Nintendo Direct just isn’t working anymore.

These ‘Nintendo’ Directs Don’t Feel ‘Nintendo’ Anymore

I think the biggest problem is relatively easy to identify, these “Nintendo” Directs don’t feel particularly “Nintendo” anymore. It has almost become a surprise when a game that is actually first-party turns up in one, and even then you are rolling a 20-sided dice to see whether it happens to be the franchise you care about. These Directs increasingly feel like a cake full of third-party games with a tiny bit of first-party sprinkled on top, rather than a Nintendo showcase supported by some of the biggest games coming from elsewhere.

As good as having strong third-party support is, especially during the first few years of the Switch 2’s life, it feels like it is overpowering everything else. This isn’t me saying third-party support is bad either, because it absolutely isn’t. Nintendo has historically struggled to attract some of the industry’s biggest games to its hardware, and seeing the Switch 2 supported properly by other publishers is a massive positive for the console. The latest Direct alone featured names including Persona 6, Monster Hunter Wilds, Final Fantasy VII Revelation and several Resident Evil games alongside Nintendo's own software.

While getting games of that calibre onto Nintendo hardware is exactly what I wanted from the Switch 2, the problem isn’t that these games are there, it’s how much of the presentation third-party software now occupies. In the three Directs post-Switch 2’s release, there have been stretches of 10 or 15 minutes where I find myself waiting for Nintendo to turn up in its own presentation. More games does not equal a better Direct, particularly when the games people have tuned in specifically to see are spread so thinly across a 45-minute runtime.

It shouldn’t be the case that you go into a Nintendo presentation of that length hoping for more than two genuinely new first-party game announcements, because that is essentially what we got this time: Metroid Ravenous and Kirby and the World Beyond. Firstly, I love both of these franchises, so that is a massive win for me, and I will play and adore both. Unfortunately though, they became wedged between so much other stuff that neither left as big an impact on me as they probably should have.

Has Nintendo Actually Stopped Announcing Games?

This is where the discussion gets interesting, though, because one Nintendo fan on X, KabiPlays, decided to do some research into every new first-party game announcement across every General Direct of the Switch era. The results actually challenge the idea that the problem is as simple as “Nintendo used to announce loads of games and now it doesn’t.” There were General Directs during the Switch’s first year with no new first-party announcements at all, while March 2018, E3 2019, September 2021 and February 2023 apparently contained only one each.

But look at what some of those solitary announcements actually were. March 2018 gave us Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and E3 2019 revealed the sequel to Breath of the Wild that eventually became Tears of the Kingdom. You don't necessarily need four or five new Nintendo games for a Direct to be remembered if the one game you do reveal is capable of blowing the roof off the presentation. I certainly don't remember watching that E3 2019 Direct and thinking, “Well, technically Nintendo only announced one new first-party game.”

There have also been presentations absolutely stacked with new Nintendo announcements. According to the tweet, February 2021 had five, E3 2021 had four, February 2022 had four, June 2023 had five and June 2024 had four. More recently, that dropped to three in September 2025, three again in June 2026 and now two in September 2026. That doesn't prove Nintendo has suddenly stopped making or announcing games, especially when the numbers have fluctuated throughout the Direct's history but combined with everything surrounding those reveals it does help explain why these presentations can feel much lighter on Nintendo than their runtimes would have you believe.

And I think that distinction is important. My problem isn't necessarily that Nintendo has suddenly fallen off a cliff in terms of the number of games it announces. It's that fewer major first-party reveals, combined with longer stretches of third-party content, updates for existing games, Switch 2 Editions and ports, can leave a General Direct feeling less like a Nintendo event. There might technically be plenty to show, but that doesn't mean everything being shown carries the same weight.

The Switch 2 Is Getting Games — Just Not Always New Ones

That brings me to another issue with the third-party focus: a lot of these games aren't actually new. Again, bringing older games to Switch 2 is objectively a good thing for the console. If, like me, you primarily play on Nintendo hardware and missed something because it previously skipped the Switch, suddenly having access to it is brilliant, while a strong back catalogue makes the Switch 2 a much more attractive system in the long term.

But if you own a PlayStation, Xbox or PC alongside your Nintendo console, there are portions of these Directs where you are essentially watching an advert for something you have already had the opportunity to play. Monster Hunter Wilds, for example, launched on PlayStation 5, Xbox and PC in February 2025 and is now coming to Switch 2 in December 2026. Cairn similarly released elsewhere in January before its Switch 2 version, while the latest presentation also featured Switch 2 versions of Resident Evil titles and other existing games.

There is a huge difference, at least to me, between an unreleased Persona 6 and Kingdom Hearts IV being confirmed for Switch 2 and an older game finally being ported across. Both are important for the console, and both technically expand its library, but only one feels like the sort of announcement capable of getting me excited during a General Nintendo Direct. When you combine older ports with Switch 2 Editions, DLC, updates, previously announced games and genuinely new releases, suddenly a presentation containing dozens upon dozens of games can produce surprisingly few moments where I feel like I've actually discovered something new.

The latest Direct is a pretty good example of that. Alongside its brand-new games, Nintendo showed a Definitive Edition of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, a Switch 2 Edition of Pikmin 4, a Switch 2 Edition of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and updates for existing titles including Mario Kart World, Pokémon Pokopia and Star Fox. None of those things are inherently bad announcements, apart from the fact Hyrule Warriors isn’t a Switch 2 addition, thanks Nintendo. The thing is, if you stack them alongside older third-party releases, suddenly a very long Direct can start to feel more like a catalogue than an event.

Nintendo and Its Fans Expect Different Things From a Direct

I think this is where Nintendo's biggest problem lies. Nintendo and the people watching its presentations seemingly have two very different definitions of what a Nintendo Direct actually is. For Nintendo, the thinking appears straightforward: these are games and experiences coming to Nintendo Switch 2, therefore they belong in a Nintendo Direct. Whether that game is exclusive, multiplatform, brand new or several years old doesn't necessarily change its importance to Nintendo because it is another reason for somebody to buy and use its console.

Fans don't necessarily see it that way. When Nintendo announces a 45-minute General Direct, nobody starts fantasising about the software catalogue becoming marginally more comprehensive. We think Mario. We think Zelda. We think Metroid, Kirby, Animal Crossing, Donkey Kong, Splatoon and, inevitably, Smash Bros. You start wondering what dormant franchise Nintendo could randomly resurrect or whether that rumoured game you've been waiting years for is finally about to appear.

Some of that is absolutely our own fault,  but what would the fun be if we stopped hyping ourselves up for these things? They only come around three times a year, so they are big events for us fans. It also helps that we are exceptionally talented at taking practically no evidence whatsoever and somehow convincing ourselves that the next 3D Mario, Smash Bros., F-Zero and Mother 3 are all about to be announced within the same 45-minute period. The speculation surrounding these things is half of the fun, but Nintendo has also spent more than a decade establishing the General Nintendo Direct as the place where enormous announcements can happen. Once you establish that reputation, you inevitably create expectations every time that red screen appears, and ESPECIALLY when they say the magic words: “Please look at this…”.

That explains how a presentation containing genuinely exciting games like Persona 6, Metroid Ravenous and Kirby and the World Beyond can still leave some people disappointed. The individual games aren't necessarily the problem; the expectation created by the words “Nintendo Direct” is. Nintendo seemingly sees these presentations as a showcase for the Switch ecosystem, while a sizeable portion of its audience still sees them primarily as a showcase for Nintendo itself.

Isn’t This What Partner Showcases Are For?

This is perhaps what confuses me most about the current approach, because Nintendo already has a format specifically designed to avoid this problem: the Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase. If Nintendo announces one of those, you know exactly what you're getting. Nobody watches 25 minutes of a Partner Showcase before furiously asking where the next 3D Mario is because Nintendo has already told you that isn't what the presentation is for.

The same applies elsewhere. Indie World exists for independent developers, Pokémon gets Pokémon Presents, and individual games and franchises can receive dedicated presentations, as The Legend of Zelda has just demonstrated with its 40th Anniversary Direct. Nintendo has created a collection of different presentation formats that allow people to broadly understand what they are about to watch before they click play, which makes it even stranger when a General Direct starts to feel increasingly like several of those formats bundled together.

I'm not suggesting Nintendo should ban third-party games from General Directs, because that would be ridiculous. Persona 6 absolutely deserves to be there. A huge previously unannounced game coming to Nintendo hardware deserves to be there. Major third-party support should be celebrated because it shows just how much healthier Nintendo's relationship with outside publishers has become. But surely there has to be a distinction between those announcements and spending valuable General Direct time telling us about every older port and smaller release coming to the system.

Nintendo Is Keeping Its Cards Close To Its Chest

There is, however, another side to all of this, and it's one where I actually think Nintendo's new strategy is better than it used to be. Nintendo appears to be keeping its cards much closer to its chest during the Switch 2 era, with Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave set to be one of the first games to have around a full year between its initial reveal and eventual release. Even then, that wait doesn't feel particularly ridiculous compared with some of the announcements we endured during the original Switch generation.

Too many games during that era were announced only for us to hear very little about them for years afterwards. Tears of the Kingdom was first teased in 2019 and didn't arrive until 2023, while Metroid Prime 4 became the ultimate cautionary tale after being announced in 2017 before Nintendo revealed in 2019 that development was effectively being restarted. COVID obviously didn't make that period any easier, but it isn't difficult to imagine Nintendo looking at those experiences and deciding that showing games closer to release is simply a safer approach.

And truthfully, I agree with them. I'd rather Nintendo reveal a game when it has a reasonably good idea of when I can actually play it than show me a logo, disappear into the darkness and ask me to come back several years later. The problem is the knock-on effect this philosophy potentially has on the Direct itself. If Nintendo has several major games in development but isn't willing to show them until they're six or nine months from release, then there simply isn't as much first-party material available to fill a 45-minute presentation at any one time.

That could also explain why the latest Direct was relatively restrained when looking beyond spring 2027. Nintendo's own recap puts Metroid Ravenous in January and Kirby and the World Beyond in spring, while many of the other first-party segments concerned games or content we already knew about. I would be amazed if Nintendo doesn't have considerably more in development behind closed doors, but if its policy is to keep those games secret until they're relatively close, third-party publishers inevitably have to fill more of the gaps.

Ironically, then, Nintendo might have improved the way it announces individual games while making the overall Nintendo Direct less exciting in the process. I don't want another Metroid Prime 4 situation where I'm waiting the best part of a decade to actually play something I've been shown, but I also don't want to sit through 45 minutes waiting for Nintendo to reveal the games it clearly isn't ready to talk about. There has to be a middle ground somewhere.

Would We Still Be Complaining If Mario Showed Up?

That does make me wonder, though: would I even be writing this article if yesterday's Direct had ended differently?

Imagine essentially the exact same presentation. Keep all of the third-party games, the older ports, the updates and Metroid Ravenous exactly where they were, but when the time came for that famous “one more thing”, instead of Kirby and the World Beyond closing the show, Mario appeared on screen. After nearly nine years without a completely new 3D adventure following Super Mario Odyssey, I find it difficult to believe the reaction afterwards would have been anywhere near as negative.

That isn't me criticising Kirby either. I love the franchise and I'm excited to see what the World Beyond ends up being, but there are levels to the impact a Nintendo announcement can have. A new 3D Kirby is exciting; the first new 3D Mario in almost a decade would be an event. Suddenly, every complaint about the preceding 40 minutes would have been fighting for attention with the fact that Nintendo had finally revealed one of the most anticipated games it could possibly announce.

Maybe that's because the best Nintendo Directs aren't necessarily remembered for everything they contained. I could barely tell you what happened during the March 2018 Direct apart from one thing: that Smash Bros. reveal is permanently ingrained into my skull. The burning Smash logo reflecting in the Inkling's eye is one of those Nintendo moments I'll probably remember forever. The same applies to E3 2019. I don't immediately associate that presentation with a list of games; I remember the final reveal and the words: “The sequel to the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is now in development”.

That's something I've struggled to find with the last few General Directs. If you put them all in front of me and asked me to distinguish which third-party game, port or update appeared in which presentation, I'd probably struggle. They increasingly blend into one another because they follow such a similar formula, and while the new Nintendo games being announced can still excite me, they haven't quite had the power to give each presentation its own identity.

That isn't an insult to Metroid Ravenous, Kirby and the World Beyond, Xenoblade Genesis or any of the other first-party games Nintendo has announced recently Metroid and Xenoblade are two of my favourite Nintendo franchises, so this isn't coming from a lack of interest in the games being announced. But there's a difference between being excited for a game and witnessing an announcement that makes you completely forget about the previous 40 minutes. Smash can do that. Zelda can do that. Mario can do that. There are only a handful of Nintendo franchises with that sort of power, and the recent Directs simply haven't had one.

Perhaps that's why the numbers from KabiPlays' research don't tell the entire story. March 2018 apparently only contained one newly announced first-party game, but that game was Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. E3 2019 also only had one, but it was the sequel to Breath of the Wild. On paper, yesterday's two new first-party announcements therefore beats both of them. I don't think many people would seriously argue that made yesterday's Direct more memorable.

And maybe that's ultimately what these recent Directs are missing: an identity. Years later, I can point towards certain presentations and immediately remember the moment. Recently, it has become harder to distinguish one General Direct from another because they increasingly feel like variations of the same presentation with plenty of games, plenty of third-party support, a few Nintendo announcements, but rarely that one moment everybody is still talking about years later.

Would replacing Kirby with a new 3D Mario actually fix all of the problems I've mentioned? No. In fact, that's precisely the point. The older ports would have been exactly the same. The lengthy third-party sections would have been exactly the same. My questions about what separates a General Direct from a Partner Showcase would have been exactly the same. Only the final few minutes would have changed, yet I suspect the entire presentation would have been remembered differently.

Of course, there is an obvious problem with that argument: not every Nintendo Direct can end with Mario, Zelda or Smash Bros. Nor should they. These games take years to develop, and part of the reason their reveals carry so much weight is because they don't happen very often. If Nintendo wheeled out one of its biggest franchises every six months just to rescue a General Direct, those moments would eventually stop feeling quite so special.

A great Nintendo Direct shouldn't need Mario to save it. There are plenty of other ways to create a memorable presentation, whether that's reviving a dormant franchise, revealing something completely unexpected or simply having enough strong Nintendo announcements throughout the show that the presentation doesn't depend on one enormous closer. Metroid Dread wasn't a new 3D Mario. Kirby and the Forgotten Land wasn't Zelda. Nintendo has dozens of franchises and, more importantly, some of its best announcements have been games nobody knew they wanted until they appeared on screen.

That's why I don't think the solution is simply “announce Mario and everyone will shut up.” A new 3D Mario probably would have completely changed the reaction to yesterday's Direct, but Nintendo shouldn't need it to. If replacing the final five minutes of an otherwise identical 45-minute presentation is enough to completely transform how that entire Direct is remembered, perhaps the bigger problem is that the other 40 minutes aren't creating enough memorable moments of their own.

And that is where these recent Directs struggle for me. They aren't necessarily bad presentations, nor are the games being announced bad games. They just increasingly lack an identity. When the megaton isn't there to carry the show, the current formula of third-party games, older ports, updates and a handful of new Nintendo announcements becomes much more noticeable. The question I'm asking after a Direct isn't necessarily “where was Mario?” It's “where was the moment?”.

Nintendo Directs Need To Feel Like Events Again

Maybe the answer is simply to make General Directs shorter. If Nintendo only has 25 or 30 minutes of genuinely substantial material worth showing, give me a 25 or 30-minute Direct. I'd much rather finish a shorter presentation wanting more than finish a 45-minute one wondering which ten minutes could have been removed. More doesn't equal better. I remember seeing countless posts when Nintendo announced an hour-long Direct last year, with people immediately assuming it had to be incredible simply because of its runtime. That wasn't the case. Older ports and smaller third-party announcements can still have their moment in Partner Showcases, while General Directs could be saved for the biggest third-party reveals and Nintendo's own major announcements.

Because when Nintendo Directs are good, there is genuinely nothing else in gaming quite like them. The best ones feel like events. There's an unpredictability to watching that transition appear between games and having absolutely no idea whether you're about to see something relatively small or an announcement that sends the entire internet into meltdown. Smash Bros. Ultimate, Tears of the Kingdom, Metroid Dread, Kirby and the Forgotten Land and countless others created those moments over the Switch generation, and that's why expectations are so ridiculously high whenever Nintendo announces another presentation.

Of course nostalgia plays a part. Not every Switch-era Direct was 40 minutes of consecutive megatons, and the research from KabiPlays proves that some of those presentations contained surprisingly few new Nintendo announcements. But I don't think nostalgia explains everything. Increasingly, I can watch 45 minutes of a Nintendo Direct, see several games that I genuinely think look good, add a couple to my wishlist and somehow still leave thinking: “Was that it?”.

That's ultimately why I don't think the current formula works. Third-party support isn't the problem. Ports aren't the problem. Nintendo keeping its biggest games secret until closer to release isn't the problem either. Individually, I'd argue all three are actually good things for the Switch 2. It's the combination of them inside the General Direct format that creates the issue, with fewer major Nintendo reveals surrounded by games available elsewhere, updates, rereleases and ports until the things I actually tuned in for risk getting lost amongst everything else.

The Switch 2 needs those games. It needs publishers to see Nintendo hardware as somewhere their biggest releases can thrive rather than as an afterthought, and the sheer breadth of software shown in the latest presentation demonstrates just how much is coming to the system. But a healthy release calendar and an entertaining Nintendo Direct are not necessarily the same thing.

Nintendo Directs used to leave me wondering what Nintendo was going to announce next. Increasingly, I find myself wondering when Nintendo is going to announce something next. So perhaps Nintendo fans don't need more presents underneath the tree simply for the sake of making the pile look bigger. Sometimes, we'd rather have fewer boxes there in the first place.

We just want the ones with Nintendo's name on them.