I am being completely serious folks, this is an opinion someone made and I have to wonder who on Gameindustry(dot)biz thought publishing this thing was a good idea? Oh, wait, a gaming journalism website needs traffic to stay alive. My bad. On the other hand, I now feel 5% less bad about my badly aged opinions on Pietriots, because reading this opinion is downright baffling and caused severe brain rot in me.

For the sake of being fair and wanting to give some historical insight, let’s first explain Nintendo Directs and why they are now the defacto way Nintendo (and others outside of Nintendo) announce games. The very first Nintendo Direct(s), plural because there was one for Japan and North America, was streamed in late October 2011. Instead of having to wait for E3 to happen every year, or do a press release that will later being unfairly scrutinized by the gaming media, Nintendo bypassed them and had either Reggie or Iwata talk directly to the audience against a white backdrop. While not every Direct is going to be a winner, the formula works because what it has to do is done well: advertise and inform. That is the ultimate goal of a Nintendo Direct, and throwing a surprise reveal at the beginning, middle and end of the Direct (and it doesn’t have to always be a Nintendo product) is a great formula.