Not really. General Directs seem to be something they're phasing out in favour of regular Youtube and Switch News channel updates with Directs being focused on independent titles. In the past, Nintendo usually only did 1 or 2 general updates per year, prior to 2011. A factor they're likely considering is that the Nintendo Directs have not seemed to been very beneficial as almost always impact stocks negatively, and very often fan reactions are mixed at best. They also have failed to improve sales; in fact, since they began phasing Directs out over the past couple of years, hardware and software sales have gone up - so either general Directs have little to no effect, or a negative effect on sales. They've been ramping them down since 2015, I think 2020 is the end of General Directs outside of special events/occasions (Summer event show Update, New Hardware). It's telling of that they didn't even do a general Direct for this year's shopping season.

Anyway, back on topic. What interested me BY FAR the most of the Animal Crossing Direct was the landscaping. HOLY CRAP, that's the sort of thing I always wanted in Animal Crossing.

The one disappointment is that the only way to share a town is if the accounts are on the same Switch, and simultaneous multiplayer can only be done between 4 players on the same screen. That's a bit disappointing for me considering I'm the only one in my household who uses the Switch as a home console - my wife and kids pretty much see home consoles as "something old fashioned that only dad likes."

This is particularly disappointing because Stardew Valley already has local multiplayer between multiple Switches, where players reside in the same town. Although, this seems like something that can be handled with a patch, simultaneous multiplayer is already there - the only thing that needs to be added is the ability to stream data to another console. Star Dew Valley required a more extensive update that required a new game, but that's because there was no simultaneous multiplayer to begin with, all of that had to be added in. With AC for Switch, it's not a content update so much as an interface update which should not impact saves.

Not needed at the moment*

Anyway, back on topic. What interested me BY FAR the most of the Animal Crossing Direct was the landscaping. HOLY CRAP, that's the sort of thing I always wanted in Animal Crossing.

I think I had another small stroke again.

Since when did directs became so useless for Nintendo?It's almost a free way(compared to traditional means of marketing) to disclose and show their games to the public.Each direct garners millions of views, and that's during the live presentation.Once they are up on youtube, they go on to have dozens of million of views, and that's on Nintendo youtube channel alone.And they did one for the holidays.It was on September, remember?

Ever since the Switch launched, they have been ramping it up, and even substituted the live E3 presentation to one closely resembling the direct format.Last year we had 3 or 4 general directs, and god knows how many nindies/game specific directs.In this year alone, we had a Pokemon, Smash and Animal Crossing directs.Where are the traces of Nintendo slowing them down to eventually stop doing them?

God, these drought periods always brings the worst on people. Have to hear such nonsense as this.

The biggest new feature they showed for sure! I have to imagine there's limits and restrictions, surely the game won't let remove all land from your town or completely surround a neighbors house with hills. Still, between this, furniture outside, and choosing where buildings go, the customization and control in this game is insane!

Since when did September 4th become the Holiday season? We call that late Summer where I come from.

Nintendo also has lots of videos that have hundreds of thousands and millions of views on their youtube channel that aren't Nintendo Directs.

Also, you're straw manning my post, I never said that Nintendo should stop having game specific Directs or Nindies. You literally just made that up. My argument was that they don't need General Directs and that they've been phasing them out because they have better ways to advertise games. Showing snippets of games that might be many months or years away, 4-8 times a year, isn't helpful. Three a year is way fewer than the monthly General Directs they used to have, and it's not far off from the 1-2 they did in the past to great success.

It's more notable now because at this point we normally would have gotten the direct already. Makes it seem like they don't have much atleast for the first half of the year. That could change easily of course, a direct in March announcing games for May/June/July is what I'm currently hoping for.

I give up.

Good. You were literally just strawmanning the whole time rather than arguing against anything I actually wrote.