- new hardware is not coming out this year, that's pretty obvious now. If you still believe it does, that's fine, but you will be a damn disappointed.
- at earnings someone will ask about hardware and they will just say "we are always working on it, nothing to announce at this time", they will talk about how Mario Movie is doing great, "definitely more movie projects in the future". Earnings are just 3 days before TotK so the idea that they will say something significant about new hardware (ala launch window etc.) is kinda funny. Remember that Nintendo could have made the earnings late April or one week prior but they did not, pretty much speaks for itself that hardware news will be non-existent aside from one investor who will bring it up.
- Direct in mid June, Pikmin 4, Prime 4 shown, also 2D Mario for October along with things like Decetive Pikachu, that Good-Feel Goemon like game, Side Order and maybe some smaller spinoffs ala Tomodachi to squeze the casual market for one last time. When you add things like last Mario Kart waves, Pokemon DLC and potentially Zelda DLC to close the year it's not bad lineup at all, especially when your top million seller releases next week.
- as you figured the "No 2H titles = hardware" theory will be dead.
- Pikmin 4 Direct month before launch, hosted by Miyamoto.
And as for that 2D Mario game I mentioned:
New. Super Mario Bros. Wii announcement at E3 2009 - November 2009 release.
New Super Mario Bros. 2 announcement in April 2012 - July 2012 release.
New. Super Mario Bros. U announcement at E3 2012 - November 2012 release (altough this one is tied to hardware launch/reveal). "The prototype NSMB Mii. was shown at E3 2011".
Super Mario Maker 2 announcement in February 2019 - June 2019 release.
So for most 2D Mario games, (apart from only DS and Makre Wii U) 4-5months from reveal to release at maximum. They are just waiting for TotK to be released to announce this, not to mention the whole former 2D Mario guys + bunch of other Splatoon 2/Octo Expansion designers missing from Splatoon 3.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.