The report says that Nintendo doesn't have any planned at the moment, not that it wont have any direct this year.

But yeah, sucks if true.

The thing I worry about is Nintendo sometimes has a tendency that when they realize a bare minimum is possible to stick to that.

So if they feel like this setup works just fine they may just scrap Directs entirely or make them very rare, like once a year.

I don't get it lol...What is especially complicated in recording a direct when you are in lock down/pandemic situation ?

We are ALL coming to work at the offices where I am, and it is the same planet as you all.

I will riot if I do not get a Bayo 3 trailer this summer. If we don't, then you cannot convince me it's not dead.

There's that too, really it could be done with just one videographer who knows what he/she is doing (how to set up a couple of lights and a audio lav) and Koizumi for example. They can even social distance as there's no real need to be within 6 feet of each other. You don't need a full blown camera crew to do this type of thing. 

Or you could just not have the Koizumi segments but have him narrate. 

Making a direct is not as simple as editing a video.

First, you have to contact third party developers and arrange for them to make trailers for you. And during this time, they may be facing a number of problems relating to the quarantines, and may not deliver the trailers or information in time, if at all. Then Nintendo would have to decide what to show and what to not show.For that, they need to study if it is worthwhile to show a game that is 1 year away or not, among other variables.

Then Nintendo needs to contact its own development teams and have them make trailers.Then these development teams have to think about how to make an awesome trailers with what they have, take footage out of their builds, discuss on how to frame these trailers, and so on.And that's all assuming that they either have the equipment they need to record/prepare the footage at home, or be able to go to his workplace to do that.And finally give back to Nintendo marketing team what they have.

Finally they have to piece together what they have into what we consider nowadays a Direct.And that's all while they have to deal with working from home, having difficulties setting up meetings, communications being slower, not knowing how the economy will be affected, how long development of their games will take due to the inevitable delays, etc.

It's not as easy as people make it seem to be.

I think people are too addicted to wanting to know everything WAY in advance. That’s fine and good for crappy generations, but Switch has been great, and one of the most densely packed lineups I can ever remember any console having.

"Instead, Nintendo has apparently begun telling third-party publishers to announce their games, rather than waiting for some form of Nintendo event."

Fuck yes, if this means we find out about games sooner than we otherwise would have, I'm all for it. C'mon you fuckers, show us what ya got.

I'm fine with Nintendo shadow dropping announcements for their upcoming games.

I don't know how much fans need to rest and prepare for the hype cycle, or live in a perpetual state or readiness.  You seem to be thinking that people live and die based on Nintendo's announcements, and I'm sure there are some people like that... But even for myself as one of the bigger Nintendo fans out there, I'm not expending much psychological energy worrying about Nintendo announcements.  I don't anticipate getting worn out or becoming apathetic based on a lack of directs.