I agree, let's focus on actual Direct discussion.
Regarding the Direct, my favorite announcement was Kirby's Return to Dreamland. I always thought it was one of the more underrated Wii games, and I'm glad to see it finally getting re-released. It looks really good.
The N64 expansion announcements are amazing. But I do hope Diddy Kong Racing gets in there eventually.
Slightly weird trying to pick my favourite announcement - Fire Emblem being January and Zelda being May were both great news, as was Octopath 2 being a thing and a February release. I'd probably say seeing Miyamoto rock up to misleadingly ramble about Pikmin Bloom before showing Pikmin 4 has become my "favourite" announcement. I'm just really glad to know it's finally come together.
Is it just me, or is the boxart of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom one of the prettiest of all-time?
It's gorgeous. I'm a huge fan of the logo. Utterly bizarre, but exciting, that we've had this officially announced for over 3 years, we now have a title, cover and release date, and we know... nothing. I can't wait to dig into it.
Ever since the Wii U era, Nintendo has been on fire with their box arts.
I loved the art on the discs, too. Skyward Sword and Last Story on Wii both had gorgeous art on the disc.
Yeah them leaving the March slot empty for now is most intriguing. They do normally like to have a game release then to plump up their financials, and often it's revealed in September. Leaving it to the normal February Direct slot would be too late. So either they're going to Twitter drop something later this year (or maybe even the Game Awards?) or they're genuinely having a quiet March, which would be odd for Nintendo.
It's an odd lineup of games for the next six months actually. Outside of Pokemon, Nintendo are only releasing one other first party game for the next three months in Bayonetta 3 (and even that's complicated thanks to Sega's involvement). You can argue they're treating Mario + Rabbids as their family friendly game, but fact remains it's an Ubisoft game first and foremost. And then after Fire Emblem as their big January game the only slated first party release between then and Zelda is a Kirby port.
I dunno, it definitely feels like Nintendo are confident enough to be holding some games back at this stage. Feels like a sharp contrast to the rest of this year where it's been hit after hit after hit.
I wouldn't get caught up on Nintendo not having their 'own' games out the next few months, though I agree the first half of 2023 looks a little odd. They've just launched a major internal game, and while Ubisoft do the heavy lifting on Sparks of Hope, it's a Mario game - it doesn't exist without Nintendo's say so and it has the October slot that's almost always been occupied by a Mario series title during the Switch era (Odyssey in 17, Party in 18 and 21, Luigi's Mansion 3 in 19, 3D All Stars in late September 2020). That's too consistent to be anything other than a deliberate strategy and I suspect Nintendo and Ubisoft worked together on the release timing. And again, Bayonetta 3 doesn't happen without Nintendo; Sega's IP ownership is immaterial when Nintendo fund and produce the game. Same deal for Pokemon, where Nintendo co-own the IP. It shouldn't surprise us that, as games development gets more complex, Nintendo's release schedule and development arrangements reflect that. Relatively few holiday seasons have leant on major internal titles from Nintendo on Switch - usually Game Freak and other affiliates and subsidiaries do the heavy lifting at that time of year.
Finally, while I think the year's line up is really strong, this year actually has the second lowest number of first party releases on Switch; only 2017 had fewer. Some of that is down to there (so far) only being one eShop release, but the year isn't really "full" the way other years have been. Like 2017, it's been consistent, varied, and well-paced; like 2019, it's pleasing to have a lot of brand new software without ports filling the schedule. I'd also say Fire Emblem, Kirby and Zelda is a strong start to 2023. Those games are out by mid May, and they're three key franchises, and you can bet Octopath Traveler 2 while multiformat will perform strongly on Switch. Some of the gaps are suspicious - especially March 2023 - but the pacing of key titles into next year seems pretty consistent with the pace they've settled on since late last year.
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