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MTZehvor on 11 March 2018
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pikashoe said:
MTZehvor said:

I'd argue the inverse; with a port, there isn't a significant need to show gameplay, since people will be pretty familiar with the product already. You don't need to remind people what Smash 4 plays like. With an entirely new game that's at most 8 or so months from launch, you'd want to show gameplay, or at the very least, more than just a mysterious blacked out shot of characters that's probably better described as a teaser rather than a full blown trailer. If it is a new game, it would presumably be Nintendo's biggest hitter of 2018; why keep so much information under wraps this early before release? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense compared just about every other big name Nintendo title I can think of. 

It is very common for new games to be first teased with a cinematic. Recent examples are bayonetta 3 and Travis strikes again. It is not very common for ports to be teased with just a cg trailer. Every port in that direct was announced as a port and had gameplay.

Not showing gameplay adds to speculation, it gets people talking more. Likely they are waiting till e3 to show gameplay. They are building anticipation for e3.

It was only two months ago that Dark Souls' announcement trailer for Switch dropped with no gameplay, yes? I'll grant that it may not be frequent, but it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

I'd buy the speculation argument if we weren't so close to launch. If you wait until E3 to reveal gameplay, you have 5 months at most to show off every single new character that you want to display before launch. You'll have to pack in so many trailers in quick succession you risk overloading audience attention and having some characters forgotten or ignored due to the announcement of others, or alternatively not advertise them at all. There's a reason Brawl and Smash 4 chose to draw out the character reveal process over a year plus, and Smash 5 choosing to buck history and try to compact all of that inside five months doesn't make a lot of sense.