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A Direct for February was basically guaranteed, but now it's confirmed it'll be a lower key "Partner Showcase" Direct rather than a 40+ minute long "major" Direct. Given all the speculation Nintendo is planning on releasing their Switch successor within the next year, I expect Direct announcements are going to continue being more lowkey until Nintendo finally does a big blowout reveal on the Switch 2.

One of the only expectations I personally have is I think we'll see one or two of Microsoft's planned multiplatform ports confirmed here. The one I feel confident about is Hi-Fi Rush, and I also get the feeling Obsidian's Pentiment might get a shadow drop.

In reguards to the next Nintendo console, I'm starting to wonder what chip die they will choose to manufacture their products. The switch uses the 20nm process from 2017, and by comparison the steam deck uses the 7nm process from 2022. Right now, nintendo's best short term options would be to use 5nm or 3nm since those are readily available. I doubt they would wait for the upcoming 2nm fabs to become operational in the upcoming year.

As a side note, silicon can only produce chips at a minimum of 2nm, which would be a single atom in size. The limits of silicon based chips has essentually been reached, as a smaller transistor would require different materials such as carbon nanotubes.

It's possible the next generation of computer chips (and therefore game consoles) is going to be the last made with silicon.

SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI V BABYYYYYYYYYY

Bullet point round up time:

-Grounded from Obsidian is indeed one of the Microsoft games coming to the Switch, launching April 16

-Indie metroidvania Ender Lilies is getting a sequel titled "Ender Magnolia: Blood in the Mist," coming to Switch sometime this year

-Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure is an indie puzzler that looks to combine slide puzzle logic to a top-down Zelda esque adventure, coming this summer

-A reminder that Vanillaware's strategy RPG "Unicorn Overlord" is coming March 8, and a demo is available today

-The first Monster Hunter Stories, originally a 3DS game, is being remastered for the Switch this summer, with the game also getting full voice acting this time.

-Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a "faithful remake" of the original Wii 3D platformer directed by Warren Spector. Coming sometime this year.

-Shin Megami Tensei V is getting an "Apocalypse" styled follow-up game titled "SMTV: Vengeance," coming June 21.

-The two CLASSIC Star Wars Battlefront games are getting a port to the Switch with all the previously Xbox exclusive DLC included (like Kitt Fisto and Jabba's Palace), and 64 player online from the PC version, coming March 14 (if this has a physical edition I'm picking it up ASAP).

-A reminder that South Park: Snow Day is launching March 26, and further confirming this is an action game instead of an RPG like the previous two SP games.

-A new Sword Art Online game is coming out this year (I've never cared for SAO, but hey for anyone who is into it, here ya go)

-Gundam Breakers 4 is coming to the Switch sometime this year

-A new Super Monkey Ball game titled "Banana Rumble" is launching as a Switch exclusive June 25. I'd wait on reviews since a lot of Monkey Ball games after the original two tend to be mixed bags.

-World of Goo 2 coming May 23, with the Switch version having four player co-op as an exclusive feature. I'm looking forward to this as the original World of Goo is one of my favorite indie games on the Wii.

-Level 5's "Fantasy Life i: The Girl who Steals Time" finally has a release date after getting delayed, coming October 10.

-Souls-like action game "Another Crab's Treasure" finally has a release date set for April 25.

-Penny's Big Breakaway, the new 3D platformer from the team behind Sonic Mania, is shadow dropping on the eShop today!

-Puzzler phenomena Suika Game is getting multiplayer DLC today, with online play being added later

-Pepper Grinder, the latest action platformer from Devolver Digital, is launching March 28, and a demo is available today.

-Game Freak's "Pocket Card Jockey" is getting a remaster on Switch shadow dropped today.

-Sizzle reel time includes Snufkin: Melody of Moomin Valley, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, Demon Slayer party game, Kingdom Come Deliverance on Switch finally has a date for March 15, Contra: Operation Galuga (a remake of the first Contra by Wayforward) is launching March 12 with a demo on the eShop today, Obsidian's Pentiment is launching on the eShop tomorrow (I originally expected it to shadow drop today)

Final two special announcements:

-Five classic games by Rare are hitting NSO today. The games are:
Snake Rattle and Roll from the NES
-RC Pro AM from the NES
-Battletoads in Battlemaniacs from the SNES
-The SNES port of Killer Instinct 1
-and finally Blast Corp from the N64

And the final announcement that's both low key but exciting for people nostalgic for the Wii:

-Endless Ocean is finally returning with a new game subtitled "Luminous," coming May 2, and you can play online with 30 players to boot

Soooo… apparently JAPAN got a confirmation that Mother 3 will be hitting NSO over there. Not surprised of course a game Nintendo only released in Japan is staying over there on NSO as well since there's also Japan exclusive Fire Emblem games on NSO over there (when Nintendo does put an untranslated Japan exclusive on NA and EU NSO it's typically a game that doesn't require understanding Japanese to play it like Panel De Pon and Kirby's Star Stacker), but oh boy I'm imagining a scenario in my head of all the gen X and millennial Rare fans happy to see some Rare classics on NSO and then wondering why the room labeled "Earthbound/Mother fanbase" has loud sobbing coming from it.

Mother 3 is a never-ending issue, isn't it? I learned that the reason why it isn't brought to the west it's because of copyright issues located in the OST, among other stuff, which is a licensing nightmare to deal with in the first place. I suppose the only other way to actually play the game here is through emulation, as it's always has been.

Anyway, in the other side of the coin, I'm quite satisfied by the selection that Rare has provided (among them is Blast Corps, which I never finished). Yeah, I have the Rare Replay collection to play them, but it doesn't hurt to test them in the Switch.

I'll be honest and say Mother 3 fans in the YouTube comments of the Rare games video are honestly bugging the shit out of me because some of them are acting like these Rare games literally mean nothing when Japan is getting Mother 3. Dude just fucking play the fan translation for free, Nintendo and Itoi have made it abundantly clear at this point they don't give a shit if people just emulate it, if they did give a shit I'm sure the fan translation would have been DMCA'd a long ass time ago. Meanwhile as someone who has been a fan of classic Rare longer than I've been a fan of Earthbound, just let us have our fucking moment, please.

@Necro
Worth noting that two of the games they put on NSO today, Battletoads in Battlemaniacs and the SNES port of Killer Instinct 1, are NOT in Rare Replay. No idea why they weren't in that collection either as they put Battletoads NES and Arcade in already, and they put KI Gold, the N64 port of KI2, in the collection.

I learned that the reason why it isn't brought to the west it's because of copyright issues located in the OST, among other stuff, which is a licensing nightmare to deal with in the first place.

At least to me it's not as ridiculous to why Ace Attorney Investigations 2 was never officially localized, which is because the people at Capcom that worked on it moved on to different things and focus was entirely placed on Dual Destines.

-Shin Megami Tensei V is getting an "Apocalypse" styled follow-up game titled "SMTV: Vengeance," coming June 21.

Actually, Apocalypse was a full-on sequel that branched off of the neutral route of IV. This is closer in style to Strange Journey Redux, Nocturne Maniax, Persona 4 Golden, etc. i.e. a rerelease that adds a new route on top of the same story.

SMT V's new version is the version the game should have originally released imo. The game looked pretty bad on the switch and now that it's coming to ps5 with better graphics and more content I want to give the game a second try.

Yesterday I learned there are infact diehard fans of Endless Ocean.