If Metroid Prime Remaster releases November 4th (just a guess), is a mid-September direct too late to announce it?
Nah.
Nate wasn't teasing anything, Grubb was logic-ing his way into expecting one but I don't think it was a tease.
Yeah, the one thing you can take from Nate is that he seems to think Nintendo does have enough to justify a Direct ahead of the usual September one. But his thoughts aren't grounded upon actual heard plans for an event, and he's indicated as much.
It’s a problem when it basically hijacked all discussion in this forum
FWIW, new hardware will either be announced this month or discussion of it will largely go back into containment in the dedicated thread for it for the rest of the year. There are very few people who think an announcement later than this month makes any sense, as it'd be rather late for a release this year but early for a release next year. You shouldn't have to put up with discussion of an intangible device much longer either way.
you know what I could totally see happening in this thread?
After an uneventful first week, hype and hopium start inflating with the expectation of a hardware reveal mid-July.
Rumblings of something start to happen, and hype skyrockets far past unsafe levels. We catch wind of something being announced in a matter of days. Might even be next Monday the 11th!!
11th rolls around and they announce... a Direct. Shit goes pandemonium. Half the site is melting down over a hardware reveal, the other half is freaking out and trying to remind the melted half that hardware doesn't get revealed in Directs, but to no avail - patterns have been thrown out the window and hype has infected every single person in this thread.
Then the Direct rolls around and it's entirely software-based with not a crumb of hardware for the rest of the month.
My only point of contention here is that Nintendo hasn't really announced hardware that would make any sense to reveal in a Direct since the new 3DS... which they did reveal in a Direct. Drake also fits that bill. You don't need to - and shouldn't - show software alongside the Lite or OLED model; the point of the Lite is the form factor, and you can't get the difference the OLED model makes across to viewers by showing them game trailers. Their quick 3-5 showcase reveals that demonstrate the physical differences of the hardware is as effective as you can get. Drake is an exception to this; you arguably
need game trailers to properly market it.
That's not to say I'm committed to the idea that it'll be announced in a Direct, but a Direct that's at least in proximity to its reveal makes more sense than following the pattern of the Lite and OLED model to a T.
yeah, to my mind it all breaks down like this:
most likely:
No event; Nintendo decided they didn't have enough to show this year. Maybe they thought that Prime would be a lower-key announcement better suited to Twitter.
next most likely:
Hardware. When E3 was cancelled they pulled their news for the big hardware announcement in their usual manufacturing-dictated timeframe, leaving behind a killer Partner Direct to fulfill obligations. Biggest flaw with this narrative is that one would assume the original third party announcements would have related to new hardware, but there are ways of rationalizing this.
unlikely:
First party Direct moved to July for fun. Why would they do this? Spacing? It makes no sense.
patently absurd:
Another Partner Direct. June's Partner Direct was way, way too big to be followed up so soon.
This is also where I'm at. There's just not quite enough noise for me to consider a hardware reveal more likely than not, but without hardware the idea that Nintendo kept their first party announcements held back by a few weeks just comes across as being in denial. Why would they indeed? They were behind on making trailers? What do they stand to gain by splitting what was presumably one planned E3 Direct into two? I can't think of
anything other than having new hardware they want to reveal first, which Nintendo would have reason to hold off on announcing for even a month or two as it could reasonably slow down current hardware sales. Either that, or the Direct runtime was just too long with the first party announcements - but that feels like an even more absurdly hopeful take on the situation than a hardware reveal, and it doesn't explain why Nintendo would split it into specifically third party and first party focused Directs.
Which leaves us with the notion that Nintendo decided to just get by until September. Not unreasonable; they have a highly anticipated game at the end of this month, and presumably a Splatoon 3 Direct lined up for August. The assumed September Direct would slot in at just the right time to keep the momentum going, and they could even get away with revealing Metroid Prime that late if they wanted to. In this timeline, hardware is not being shown or released this year. But even that feels slightly off; why not include Metroid Prime in the June Direct, give a Splatoon 3 update, show the next Booster Pass courses, maybe slip a 2023 trailer in there (Zelda?), and just call it a normal Nintendo Direct? Surely that would've been enough with how heavy-hitting some of the third party announcements were? Looking back at the last few September Directs, they tend not to have much in the way of new first party reveals anyway; the last one had Kirby and the NSO Expansion Pack, while the one before had the Smash Fighter Pass 2, SNES NSO, and Xenoblade DE. These Directs are historically much more focused on highlighting already announced holiday and winter titles, so I don't think adding in a couple of reveals to June would've stolen September's thunder.
Nothing is quite satisfying at the moment. I think part of the reason I'm giving such a large shake to hardware is because it all would make sense in the end if it does happen now, whereas if it doesn't happen I don't see a scenario where I look back at the end of the year and understand Nintendo's moves this summer. Not that Nintendo always makes sense on the outside, of course.
