I'm mostly hyped for the RPGs on the 3DS for next year especially DQ7&8

I...yeah, pretty much. Thinking about it, those are the Nintendo games I care about too, so a show with them is good, and a show without them is bad.

You bring up many points and I can only conclude that Nintendo fans are ok if Nintendo rests on it's laurels. Excited over dlc and an hd remake/remaster/port (to be fair, we are not sure which it is yet)? I want something I can really sink my teeth into. A proper 3d mario for wiiu would be a start.

I'm drawing no blank; I got a release window and an amazing looking new trailer for FAST Racing Neo, and a date and some better-looking footage for Starfox Zero. This plus re-affirmation of Zelda coming to Wii U made it a decent Direct for me. I don't give a damn about Cloud in Smash, or Smash as a whole. ;)

Yeah, this is pretty much true for me, except take out Metroid and add Pokemon and Fire Emblem. That's why I enjoyed this direct. It had Mario(Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam), Zelda(Twilight Princess HD, 10 seconds of Zelda U, Hyrule Warriors Legends, Triforce Heroes Update, etc.), Smash Bros(Cloud DLC), Pokemon(RBY virtual console, Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, Pokken), and Fire Emblem(Fates Special Edition and release date). So it had all 5 Nintendo IP's that I truly care about. But I don't really care about being a sheep or predictable as long as Nintendo keeps making me happy.

um, from most of what I've seen most people are pretty meh or even disappointed in Twilight Princess HD, it was moreso Smash this time around (And even then I'd argue it was more because of WHO got into Smash)

Personally it had me hyped to know most of what they showed was gonna be out in less than 6 months

- People have less high expectations for a Nintendo Direct than an E3 Conference.

- TP HD and Dragon Quest VII and VIII were announced for the West. That's 3 new titles we'll get to play that we didn't know beforehand (let's ignore the leak).

- Cloud, one of the biggest PS icons, was announced for Smash Bros. 4.

- Star Fox: Zero, while still looking bad, looked better.

- Zelda U footage and reconfirmed for Wii U in 2016.

- They didn't sully the Direct with the presence of a certain game.

- Triforce Heroes free DLC

- More free Splatoon content till January

- Xenoblade Chronicles X will get the dlc for free.

You're definitely oversimplifying things here. There are tons of fans who were looking solely for the 25 minutes that you seem to think people forgot about. We got a bunch of release dates for Q1 2016 and got the hype train started on a good amount of those games. I don't give a damn about Fire Emblem but you can tell Fates is about to start rolling the ball downhill. Things like that, DQVII/VIII, Bravely Second, Paper Jam*, etc. are a big deal to many. They may all be overshadowed by the fact that Cloud has broken all the sacred tenets of Smash eligibility, because, y'know, that's a big goddamn deal, but they're still factors in why the Direct was well received. The only two things that underwhelmed were the weak Yokai Watch push and the freemium games. Well, and how poor TPHD looks, but that's to be expected by most of the sensible people here. Boiling it down to a port that many people unaffected by the Zelda cycle disliked and a very controversial character doesn't do this Direct any justice when they did so much more. And as an addendum to that statement, when arguing that only four series matter when it comes to Direct, you should be more mindful that the reaction to every game in those four series this gen - with the exception of Smash - got very poor response from fans upon reveal. 3DW was hated unlike any other game until its second footage reveal, Zelda U looked horrendously empty, and I won't even touch Federation Force's response. So TL;DR you're very much oversimplifying if you're gonna boil peoples' opinions of Directs or Nintendo by four series alone.

It's timing. I don't think it would have been well received at all if this was shown at E3. We've already been let down by many of these games because of E3, so seeing them again now isn't even remotely as disappointing. Seeing Star Fox look bad isn't crushing now because we've been bashing it for months already, for example.

January 23, 2015 Direct. I'm certain that that direct was so well received not because of Wind Waker HD but rather because brand new titles such as Shin-Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem, Yarn Yoshi, and Xenoblade X.