We all know Nintendo loves to delay, but have they been delaying or cancelling their announcements?

Evidence:

This year we have had one non-specific Direct.

Last month we were gearing up for a direct that never came, but a bunch of announcements came out that would have normally been in a direct.

The same thing happened the month before.

At the start of the year indies were trying hype a particular Friday, on which nothing happened.

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If they are cancelling Directs, then why? Is it for an E3 blowout? Is there nothing to talk about? Or are they finding the medium commercially ineffective?

I'm guessing they already announced most of their big stuff and they have to save the rest to have some surprises at E3.  If they had another direct like the one last year then I'd think they're not doing an E3 conference again.  

nothing to talk about.

I doubt they're cancelling directs. It's probably that they want to have a better E3.

Wait for E3, We had a major Direct in Feb, a huge SSB direct in Apr. Expect a MK8 Direct in May and if not E3 will be here shortly.

This shouldn't even be considered a legit answer at the moment...

Yup.

@TBone:

That's what I mean though, we've only had 1 'proper' direct. The Smash Bros one doesn't really count as it's just one title. Same for the Tomodachi Life, epic though it was. In 2013, by this time, we'd had 5 directs. This year, we've had 2, including Smash.

And to clarify what I mean by missed announcements:

-Sonic Boom
-Indie eShop sale (at least in EU)
-GBA dates (they actually did a trailer for this!)

-Mario Kart items trailer (that hit with the presser)
-Character and date announces from Smash Direct
-Tomodachi Life

I personally think that they're holding back on announcements to deliver at E3. And I also think that we won't see much of Smash (at the conference), given the scale of the direct; maybe just a character announce and actual release dates.

Also, Fatal Frame announce.

Does that mean that we won't get a Direct this month either? (the Mario Kart 8 Direct on the 15th May -official prediction- doesn't count)

Yes they are holding back everything intill E3. SSB direct was definitely a proper direct. It was a direct to 2 of nintendo's 3 biggest games of 2014 (SSB for 3DS+SSB for WiiU), had a ton of info. In fact the info in this direct was more than 90% of all nintendo proper directs of all time.

We might see yet another direct (MK8 ONLY) in time before MK8 release. No point in talking about games this month when we already know about kirby/Mario Golf and E3 is around the corner. Nintendo needs to get all the attention. I rather a blow out at e3 then a 20min direct. Last year's Nintendo Direct e3 was straight to the point with games.

Best directs so far (in terms of info and hype) are Easily E3 Direct/SSB Direct/Jan 2013 Direct.