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Nintendo Direct for February 8, 2023

Last posted Feb 09, 2023 at 10:27AM EST. Added Feb 07, 2023 at 09:34AM EST
15 posts from 9 users

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It'll be 40 minutes long and will "mostly" focus on games releasing in the first half of the year, but fact it says "mostly" means we'll still get some stuff releasing later on.

The safe predictions I've got are:

-New Tears of the Kingdom trailer either reconfirming it's still coming in May or a shocking announcement of a delay to later in the year, and they'll likely release a Zelda themed Switch OLED alongside the game too.
-Advance Wars 1+2 Re-boot Camp finally gets a release date, likely for March or April
-A new teaser for Pikmin 4 that confirms a release window of Q4 2023 or something and to "stay tuned for more info later in the year"
-New Bayonetta Origins trailer (it is coming out next month)
-A reminder of the Mario movie coming out in April

Now those are just the stuff I think is on the "very very likely to be in the Direct" side of things, the stuff I'd like to see but maybe won't be shown are:

-Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD double pack finally confirmed and will be releasing late summer or early fall
-We get a more concrete answer on when the next batch of NSO games we know are coming will release on which months (namely we lack months for things like Mario Party 3, Excitebike 64, and the Pokemon Stadium games)
-Xenoblade Chronicles X finally gets a Switch port and it's coming out summer or fall

But anyway as of posting this the Direct is tomorrow so lets see what happens.

Posting this rumor real quick before it's confirmed or denied by the Direct in a few hours:

Nintendo put Tears of the Kingdom's price on the eShop as $70 last night before removing it a few hours later

I mentioned before it's inevitable Nintendo will go the route of $70 first party games since Sony and Microsoft have already gone down that path before them, I'm just a little surprised it looks like they may be going that route a bit sooner than expected (I was expecting this to become a thing with the Switch's successor). Now granted maybe this was an error and the $70 is actually the price for a "digital deluxe" edition that comes with the season pass (I think DLC is inevitable too since BOTW did it), but it also wouldn't shock me too much if Nintendo's suits realized Tears of the Kingdom is probably the "best" game to start getting Nintendo players used to a higher price on first party software.

So, some things about the direct:

First off, looks like Advance Wars Reboot Camp is gonna finally release this year. I recall that Nintendo delayed its release cause Russia randomly wanted to act like a big dick last year and Nintendo was apparently concerned about optics and stuff. But I was of the opinion that they were gonna have to release this eventually since I assume Nintendo sunk capital in making this remaster in the first place, and it seems they might've used the extra year of delay to further polish the game (or at least the animations)

Metroid Prime Remastered was a bit of a surprise, even more surprising was they apparently just decided to plonk the remastered game on us today! I guess Nintendo is doing Stealth drops as well. If nothing else, it's nice to see a Gamecube game ported to Switch. That could be a sign they might be making some progress on Metroid Prime 4…

Finally, Tears of the Kingdom. I was watching Yongyea's stream with his reactions, and it seems he and his audience was a bit disappointed that there was no gameplay, stating that when BOTW was released, they had a whole segment that was showing off gameplay and stuff. Who knows why that is, maybe the gameplay is similar to BOTW with even more polish with some expanded gameplay, maybe they'll show it off in a final dedicated direct just before it gets released. We'll see.

Also, I did check the price, and it seems they did raise it to $70…

Pretty average Direct. I was mostly intrigued by the Level-5 games, Decapolice and the new Professor Layton; new Fantasy Life sounded great at first, but this one looks more like Animal Crossing--New Horizons specifically--than Fantasy Life to me; why do game devs seem to think people will love being able to build anything and everything in their life sims?

New Samba de Amigo was incredibly out of left field, who'da thunkit that out of all their franchises Sega would decide to revive this one.

There's going to be a Magolor mode in Return to Dream Land! Fingers crossed it ends with the mob-sweeping ultra ability fest that I'm imagining

They put Fire Emblem Heroes into Fire Emblem Engage, what gives; how canon does that make FEH considering it has access to every single universe in the Fire Emblem franchise, including Tokyo Mirage Sessions

And finally, figures they'd end with Tears of the Kingdom. So it's pretty much confirmed that it's the same Hyrule from BotW with floating islands. Honestly looks alright what with the vehicles and whatnot, but I doubt it's going to be anywhere near as captivating as BotW was simply because it doesn't introduce a whole new world to explore

UnKewln00b wrote:

Could 2023 finally be the year we see anything about Metroid Prime 4?

No Metroid Prime 4, but there was a bit of Metroid Prime Remastered so that's something.

Last edited Feb 08, 2023 at 07:57PM EST

Mistress Fortune wrote:

Posting this rumor real quick before it's confirmed or denied by the Direct in a few hours:

Nintendo put Tears of the Kingdom's price on the eShop as $70 last night before removing it a few hours later

I mentioned before it's inevitable Nintendo will go the route of $70 first party games since Sony and Microsoft have already gone down that path before them, I'm just a little surprised it looks like they may be going that route a bit sooner than expected (I was expecting this to become a thing with the Switch's successor). Now granted maybe this was an error and the $70 is actually the price for a "digital deluxe" edition that comes with the season pass (I think DLC is inevitable too since BOTW did it), but it also wouldn't shock me too much if Nintendo's suits realized Tears of the Kingdom is probably the "best" game to start getting Nintendo players used to a higher price on first party software.

It being for a deluxe edition is possible, but if that were the case, I would think it would be $80.

Sugary Salt wrote:

Pretty average Direct. I was mostly intrigued by the Level-5 games, Decapolice and the new Professor Layton; new Fantasy Life sounded great at first, but this one looks more like Animal Crossing--New Horizons specifically--than Fantasy Life to me; why do game devs seem to think people will love being able to build anything and everything in their life sims?

New Samba de Amigo was incredibly out of left field, who'da thunkit that out of all their franchises Sega would decide to revive this one.

There's going to be a Magolor mode in Return to Dream Land! Fingers crossed it ends with the mob-sweeping ultra ability fest that I'm imagining

They put Fire Emblem Heroes into Fire Emblem Engage, what gives; how canon does that make FEH considering it has access to every single universe in the Fire Emblem franchise, including Tokyo Mirage Sessions

And finally, figures they'd end with Tears of the Kingdom. So it's pretty much confirmed that it's the same Hyrule from BotW with floating islands. Honestly looks alright what with the vehicles and whatnot, but I doubt it's going to be anywhere near as captivating as BotW was simply because it doesn't introduce a whole new world to explore

Hey now, Veronica is great in Heroes, so it is nice to see some nods from that game in this new one

Pokejoseph64 wrote:

Hey now, Veronica is great in Heroes, so it is nice to see some nods from that game in this new one

Oh, absolutely; I'm just wondering if that makes FEH canon at all in relation to any other game in the franchise. If it does, it would canonise an infinite FE multiverse where there are multiple Chroms with different hats. Wild.

I really like that the game boy games have been added to the online library. With the GBA games added to the expansion pass, it looks a bit more interesting to consider it but i think i'll wait a bit more…

More ToTK footage is always nice but the footage is still a bit on the meager side.

We finally got a release date for sea of stars! I've alreeady played a bit of the demo and i have to say it is everything i've ever dreamed about in a game. Can't wait to play it when it comes out in August.

Didn't expect a new Layton game coming out, that one was a nice surprise.

Love the remake of We love Katamari. People consider it the best game in the series.

Looks like a really solid lineup to look forward to.

pity there's still no silksong

So it's confirmed that yes Tears of the Kingdom is going to be Nintendo's first $70 game, but what's interesting is Pikmin 4 (coming out a couple months after) is still $60 like usual, but the Metroid Prime remaster is shockingly only $40 which yes for Nintendo that's pretty surprising when you remember they've typically priced remakes and remasters (most recently the remaster of Skyward Sword, a decade old Wii game) at $60.

According to Nintendo execs their pricing of first party software is going to vary on a case by case basis rather than sticking to a strict 'every game is going to cost the same' model

My guess is Nintendo's higher ups are likely going to price the "guaranteed to sell millions upon millions" IPs like mainline Mario and Zelda at $70, as they likely view the "value" of these IPs as being very on par with IPs like God of War or Call of Duty (games that made the transition to the $70 price point but still sell gangbusters). Stuff that's "premium, but not likely to get Mario or Zelda numbers" will stick to $60 (like Pikmin), while stuff that's "got a strong following in certain parts of the world, but still not guaranteed to make the biggest bucks" will vary anywhere from $40 to $60 like Metroid.

Last edited Feb 09, 2023 at 08:21AM EST

Mistress Fortune wrote:

So it's confirmed that yes Tears of the Kingdom is going to be Nintendo's first $70 game, but what's interesting is Pikmin 4 (coming out a couple months after) is still $60 like usual, but the Metroid Prime remaster is shockingly only $40 which yes for Nintendo that's pretty surprising when you remember they've typically priced remakes and remasters (most recently the remaster of Skyward Sword, a decade old Wii game) at $60.

According to Nintendo execs their pricing of first party software is going to vary on a case by case basis rather than sticking to a strict 'every game is going to cost the same' model

My guess is Nintendo's higher ups are likely going to price the "guaranteed to sell millions upon millions" IPs like mainline Mario and Zelda at $70, as they likely view the "value" of these IPs as being very on par with IPs like God of War or Call of Duty (games that made the transition to the $70 price point but still sell gangbusters). Stuff that's "premium, but not likely to get Mario or Zelda numbers" will stick to $60 (like Pikmin), while stuff that's "got a strong following in certain parts of the world, but still not guaranteed to make the biggest bucks" will vary anywhere from $40 to $60 like Metroid.

Interesting strategy I suppose. The risk of raising a game to $70 I feel is that it means that the game in question better be really high in quality to justify that price, and it isn't then the game will tank pretty hard (like what happened with Forespoken, a $70 game).
But even then, I feel that if Tears of the Kingdom was $60, Nintendo might be able to push more sales, both digital and physical and thus would actually make more money than if it was $70. I kinda wonder if as a result, Tears of the Kingdom might receive slightly less sales than what Nintendo expected even if the game is high quality.

Pikmin is definitely something that is more niche, but Metroid I'm kinda surprised you said was an IP that doesn't make the biggest bucks. I mean, Metroid to me seems pretty famous (if only because of Samus being a woman and stuff), but I suppose it isn't Nintendo's biggest IP.

Still surprised by Nintendo not only making a Metroid Prime remaster, but also releasing it on the same day it got announced. I wonder how that'll influence other companies going forward, and if they'll try to drop more games on the day they announce it on their equivalent of Nintendo Directs.

qx1511 wrote:

Interesting strategy I suppose. The risk of raising a game to $70 I feel is that it means that the game in question better be really high in quality to justify that price, and it isn't then the game will tank pretty hard (like what happened with Forespoken, a $70 game).
But even then, I feel that if Tears of the Kingdom was $60, Nintendo might be able to push more sales, both digital and physical and thus would actually make more money than if it was $70. I kinda wonder if as a result, Tears of the Kingdom might receive slightly less sales than what Nintendo expected even if the game is high quality.

Pikmin is definitely something that is more niche, but Metroid I'm kinda surprised you said was an IP that doesn't make the biggest bucks. I mean, Metroid to me seems pretty famous (if only because of Samus being a woman and stuff), but I suppose it isn't Nintendo's biggest IP.

Still surprised by Nintendo not only making a Metroid Prime remaster, but also releasing it on the same day it got announced. I wonder how that'll influence other companies going forward, and if they'll try to drop more games on the day they announce it on their equivalent of Nintendo Directs.

Metroid has historically never sold well in Japan, it's best sales come from North America and Europe. They tried to appeal more to Japan with Other M (even basing aspects of it off a Japan-only Metroid manga) but that flopped worldwide, and Sakamoto seems very keen on not repeating what happened (Samus Returns and Dread avoided the problems Other M had and even in the lead ups to both games Nintendo seemed to almost act like Other M never happened, and heck even when Adam was brought up in a demonstration for Dread they were very quick to mention "this is Fusion Adam, not Other M Adam", likely knowing how hated Other M Adam is). And prior to Dread, which is presently the best selling game in the franchise having sold damn near close to 3 million copies at this point (around 2.9 million), the best selling Metroid before it was Prime 1, which sold very close to the same numbers (around 2.8 million copies).

So yeah Metroid may be a well liked series, but it's never gotten anywhere close to Mario or Zelda sales numbers.

Skeletor-sm

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