With the Xbox Games Showcase, Summer Game Fest, Ubisoft Forward, and more, number of major showcase events have been confirmed for the coming weeks, while recent leaks have also made it look increasingly likely that a PlayStation Showcase will be happening later this month. But what does Nintendo have going on amidst all this? With The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom due out this week, the Japanese company is set to deliver what is probably the biggest release of the year, but can we expect it to make any significant new announcements in the near future?
It doesn’t seem like that’s going to be the case. That’s as per VGC’s Andy Robinson, who recently took to Twitter to corroborate recent leaks about the aforementioned PlayStation Showcase and Konami’s alleged PS5 exclusivity deals with Sony, and added that he isn’t “expecting Nintendo to do anything”, indicating that a June Nintendo Direct – which the company has consistently done on an annual basis (for the most part) – will not be happening this year.
This does align with what recent reports have claimed about the company’s release schedule. Amidst reports that work on Switch successor is underway, it has been claimed that the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is set to be Nintendo’s last major first party release for the Switch. The likes of Pikmin 4 are, of course, still in the pipeline, but allegedly, any new major flagship releases beyond Zelda are being saved for the company’s next console.
Assuming that is correct, and that Nintendo isn’t going to be ready to talk about the Switch successor and its games in June, it’s not entirely surprising that a Direct might not be part of the plans for the immediate future.