Nintendo isn’t ready to crawl into a hole and hide while the countdown to Sony’s expected Playstation 4 announcement cross the one week left mark. Quite the contrary, they appeared poised to deliver some news of their own.
Nintendo has announced that they will celebrate Valentine’s Day by releasing a new Nintendo Direct video that will “focus on upcoming Nintendo 3DS and Wii U games” at 9/8c. If you’re unfamiliar with Nintendo Direct, it’s a clever new marketing and publicity tool that Nintendo uses to relay new information straight from the horse’s mouth to its consumers, bypassing the media altogether.
The last Nintendo Direct was a doozy in that several new high profile Wii U games were revealed including two Zelda titles, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., a 3D Mario game and Mario Party, the latter of which will be available in stores this summer. Mario Kart and the 3D Mario game will be playable at E3 this June, and a first look at Super Smash Bros. will be revealed the same time.
How can Nintendo possibly trump that? Frankly they can’t. They can, however, crack open their upcoming games’ library a little further and alleviate the fears of early adopters that have recently seen Rayman Legends get pushed into September and lose its Wii U exclusive draw, and Aliens: Colonial Marines launch without the Wii U version. They can start by delivering a concrete release date for Pikmin 3, originally thought to be a launch title when it was revealed at E3 2012, only to be pushed back twice now and still not have a date.
Looking at Nintendo’s upcoming calendar I expect to see some new details and footage released for Lego City Undercover and its 3DS prequel, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, and, given its Valentine’s Day, perhaps Animal Crossing: New Leaf.
Stop back early tomorrow morning when we will update this article with the live streaming information.
