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A New Partner Showcase is Coming This Wednesday!

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A New Partner Showcase is Coming This Wednesday!

For a while now, we’ve seen a lot of speculation about when and what the next Nintendo Direct would be. Some people thought it’d be a traditional one in February, like in many previous years. Some expected a Partner Showcase this month, with a full-blown Switch 2 presentation a couple of weeks later. And some people wondered whether anything would happen at all, with Nintendo having already revealed most of their big titles for early 2024 by that point already.

But now we know the answer. As the title suggests, we’re getting a new Partner Showcase Direct on February 21st 2024, with 25 minutes of information about Switch games being released by Nintendo’s ‘publishing and developmental partners’. Here’s the tweet about it from Nintendo of America:

As well as the ones from Nintendo UK:

And their Japanese HQ:

So, in some way, one of the rumours was right. We are indeed getting a Partner Showcase this week, presumably with third party Switch games being the focus.

Yet that still leaves a few things up in the air. Most notably, is the Switch 2 presentation also going to be a thing?

Because it feels both likely and unlikely at the same time. On the one hand, it would explain why Nintendo published games aren’t the main focus of a Direct, since Nintendo’s focus is on the Switch’s successor rather than games for the current system. So in that sense, we can definitely see a repeat of 2017 here. Minor announcements first, big console trailer with the first glimpse of the next new games later, and said console’s release a while after that.

At the same time though, there are also rumours that said console has been delayed until 2025, and that we shouldn’t expect to see it yet anyway.

So, what’s the situation here? If there is a Switch successor in 2024, then having a separate presentation for it makes sense. But if there isn’t one, why would Nintendo even bother to have a Partner Showcase in place of a Direct?

It feels strange to us, and makes us wonder if something’s gone astray with the company’s plans for the year.

And it gets even weirder when you take into account the other rumours floating around about now. Like how the seemingly reputable leaker Pyoro says that an Endless Ocean sequel is going to be featured in this Showcase, despite it being part of a Nintendo published series. So, are Nintendo-published games going to be featured in the Direct? That would make sense based on the wording of tweets here, which either say the games are from “Nintendo’s publishing and developmental partners” or just say the games are from “software makers” instead.

Hence it seems like the Partner Showcase branding may be a tad misleading here. Or at least, that third party franchises might not be the only things included.

Then there’s the other question, namely about which games would be included here. Assuming Pyoro is accurate it seems like Endless Ocean and at least one Game Freak made non-Pokémon game would be in the presentation, but what else could there be here? Could we get Pizza Tower on Switch? See one of those rumoured Microsoft cross platform games get revealed, like a new Banjo-Kazooie? What about a new Warriors game or indie made Nintendo spinoff like Cadence of Hyrule?

Honestly, it’s all possible, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see at least one internet shattering announcement in the event this Wednesday.

Still, that’s the next Direct. It’s a Partner Showcase, and takes place this Friday at 2pm GMT.

So, what do you think about it? Are you excited for the event? What games do you think Nintendo will reveal for Switch this time around?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below, on social media, or on our Discord server today!

Source:

A Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase is Coming (Nintendo UK on Twitter)