The cancellation of E3 2020 and the health contingency caused by the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) have seriously impacted the video game industry. As a result, some companies will not only organize their events online, but some have already announced that they will not be holding them. It seems that Nintendo could be one of them, since information indicates that no new Nintendo Direct is in plans.
A few weeks ago, Jeff Grubb, a journalist for VentureBeat, reported that Nintendo would not host a Nintendo Direct to showcase its news in June, according to its sources. Well, apart from giving information about other companies in the industry, Grubb updated the status of what Nintendo is preparing and said that the company has no plans related to any Nintendo Direct.
This is rare, considering that the Japanese company adopted this virtual format to publicize its upcoming games several years ago, apart from having a stake in E3. In other words, this would be the first time in years that Nintendo would not concentrate its most important announcements on a Nintendo Direct in the middle of the year.
According to sources of Grubb, which he kept anonymous, Nintendo is telling its development partners “not to wait for a Direct even if they have a big announcement,” suggesting to make their titles known through individual trailers. On the other hand, the company would announce its internal developments in the style of Paper Mario: The Origami King, which was announced without prior notice.
It is important to say that the absence of a Nintendo Direct in the middle of the year adds to the drought of this type of event in recent months. We remind you that, however, the Japanese developer and distributor still has many unannounced games.
According to Furukawa, there are several titles that would debut in the current fiscal year and of which we do not know, as happened with the recent announcement of the new installment of Paper Mario. Thus, the above seems to indicate that the company decided to leave these presentations and choose not to make announcements together.
So, accordingly, Nintendo would show their games in a similar way to Square Enix, which is expected not to carry out a concentrated presentation with their upcoming titles, but will show them individually.
