yearly live presentations like E3 were so much better

now all we get is a random compilation of trailers

I was never a E3 fan. Trailer with nothing but cut scenes with a release date TBC. I am so glad that went away.

Direct are superior because the games release soon (or relatively) and show actual gameplay.

Sometimes E3 announcements didn't even show anything other than a game title. Not sure why people find that exciting.

I remember when starcraft ghost was going to be the best thing ever.  

E3 I liked in that it forced Nintendo to show up and make an effort. Since it ended, they seem to show off as little as they can away with.

I'd much rather see a Direct it's something to look forward to for a few days and creates some excitement, meanwhile a random midweek drop on social media or in a phone app does nothing for me it either gets lost in all the slop of the internet or I see it and think cool fair enough and that's that.

I think a video like this more than anything else shows why Nintendo shifting away from the direct format and towards social media posts would be a shame. 

I think Furukawa will phase out Directs to basically once a year in the summer maybe and then the rest will just be random drops of marketing here and there.

Furukawa is nothing like Iwata and doesn't give a crap how Iwata did things. People don't get there's been a massive internal change at Nintendo because Furukawa doesn't do interviews and isn't very visible (but again, that is the exact opposite of Iwata).

I wouldn't be that surprised if the name "Nintendo Direct" is also changed at some point to something else.

Nintendo of that past era is pretty much dead, IMO mostly it's been good because you're getting better hardware than you would have under Iwata and the same great games but the better hardware also enables better 3rd party games. But sure, things are more expensive with better hardware and Nintendo has embraced more premium pricing as a whole. I also prefer Hollywood movies and theme parks being Nintendo's big "mainstream" outreach instead of targeting the soccer mom audience in the Iwata era. 

I don't miss the days of Wii Music being like the big Nintendo release for the year or them trying to launch a major platform with like Nintendogs or Nintendo Land as the lead software. I'll take "we're getting a new Star Fox because Fox was in the new Mario movie" instead. Directs were alright but if Furukawa doesn't want to focus on them as much anymore, I'll go with it. 

Weren’t almost all of the Smash Ultimate DLC fighter reveals in non-General Direct presentations? Piranha Plant was in the Smash Ultimate Nov 2018 Direct, Joker was at TGA’18, Blythe was in a Sakurai Presents, Min Min & Steve were surprise dropped, Sephiroth was TGA’20, and Sora was in a separate Sakurai presentation.

I feel like this points more in favor of straying away from General Directs than anything— Nintendo is clearly capable of generating crazy hype without the need for all of these General Directs.

About half were announced during general directs but with this post I was referring to the direct format in general. My point is imagine if they had just tweeted out that announcement and uploaded the video of it on some random day instead of having it be part of a live event that tons of people were watching and recording their reactions to. It would've been a lot less fun basically.

E3 sucked so much donkey shit balls. 2 hour boring conferences full of cringe and shitty buzzwords. Showing the same 3-4 games or game types over and over. 3 days. It's like going to a 30 inning Baseball game tied 1-1. It's trash, it's boring and it's long. A direct is the best method ever devised. 40 min. To the point. Convenient. Informative. Esp Nintendo Directs who generally avoid hype bullshit everyone else does. CGI trailer and talking heads masturbating to their next game showing little gameplay. ND's show the game, tell you what it's about and what you do. A general release date. Bam wham thank you mam. To the point. Sony and MS and others esp E3 era I have this to say. Thank you. Fuck you. Bye.

I'd argue it forced everyone to show up even if they had nothing to show. Take your example. Nintendo. They showed almost nothing in 2008, little in 2009. Little in 2015. 1 game in 2016. Very little in 2017.  Not much in 2018 either so they filled most of it with Smash. Sony kept showing up for a few years in a row showing the same 4 games in the PS4 era. EA never had shit to show but more sports. Bethesda was so desperate they announced 2 games. Only one of which has come out.  Now with dev cycles even longer than in 2018. That would be so much worse now. E3 was great in the 5th and 6th gen esp when a publisher could put out up to a dozen games a year. Everyone had a lot to show.