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We’re now one full week into October following the first September since 2016 without a really big Nintendo Direct.
Looking back at our Nintendo Direct broadcast history guide, it’s all there in black and white (well, red and white). 2020’s Direct might have been a Super Mario-focused job themed around that series’ 35th anniversary, but that caveat aside, 2016 — the year before the Switch launched — was the last year there wasn’t a full, flagship Nintendo Direct in September.
And even then, there was a half-hour 3DS-specific presentation. If you count that as a full-fat Direct, 2015 was the last year we got through a September with no big Nintendo announcements.
To be fair, August delivered a bumper crop this year, with the Nintendo Museum getting its own presentation, plus a double helping of Indie World Showcase and Partner Showcase arriving on 27th August. Combining the latter two into an uber showcase was a first for Nintendo, perhaps a ploy to deliver a large portion for fans to chew on and sustain them through September.
This is Nintendo we’re talking about; all bets are off when it comes to received wisdom.
Which brings us to October, a month which is traditionally fairly quiet, Nintendo announcements-wise. At this stage, the manufacturing and retail chains will be in full swing and gearing up for the lucrative end-of-year period. You may recall that the Switch OLED launched alongside Metroid Dread back in October 2021, for example. At this point of the year, there’s a much higher chance of leaks for products you’re looking to launch in time for the holidays. Mario & Luigi: Brothership sets sail in exactly a month’s time, and before then we’ve got a Mario Party to attend.
Will there be an October 2024 Nintendo Direct, then? It’s certainly possible, although with those two Mario releases there’s also just enough occurring in Nintendo land for the company to coast a while longer on the announcements front.
However, there is one massively significant announcement from the last decade that Nintendo made in October: the official reveal of the console formerly known as NX, the Nintendo Switch.
Thursday 20th October 2016 was the date Nintendo first showed off Switch to the world (ha ha, ha ha, yeah). Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but the deathly silence throughout last month — aside from some welcome news that some more F-Zero games are coming to Nintendo Switch Online, of course — suggests that maybe, just maybe Nintendo has something big up its sleeve in the near future.