Keeping up their recent pattern of one major Nintendo Direct presentation every month, Nintendo has announced that they will be broadcasting their latest Nintendo Direct stream tomorrow, December 18th. The broadcast will go live for us North American viewers at 6 A.M. PDT, 9 A.M. EST. It will be complemented by a European counterpart for 2 P.M. GMT.
This latest Direct is said to focus on Nintendo’s Spring 2014 releases for both 3DS and Wii U. Likely game subjects releasing in this window for North America include Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Mario Kart 8 on Wii U, along with Bravely Default and Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy for 3DS.
Despite a German Nintendo executive being claimed to have said that Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U will ship for Spring 2014, Nintendo has since clarified that said executive was misquoted, and that neither game will be ready for the Spring 2014 release window. Still, it’s possible that we may get a new trailer and perhaps a new character reveal or two during this latest Direct, even if it’s unlikely that either game will arrive before the latter half of 2014, given the limited marketing and video footage shown for both so far.
Most of Nintendo’s 2014 games, much like the new Super Smash Bros. offerings, currently lack a release window. Nonetheless, Bayonetta 2 and a formally-untitled mech-themed RPG by Monolith Soft are said to be releasing exclusively on Wii U at some point next year, with Mario Golf: World Tour, Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and a new Kirby game all planned for an undetermined 2014 release on 3DS at this point.
It’s probable that this Direct will give at least a couple of these games a release window, and will hopefully contain some nice surprises to look forward to, especially for the rapidly-blossoming eShop and Virtual Console selections on both 3DS and Wii U! Given Nintendo’s devoted pledge to the indie market in recent months, it’s likely that we’ll see even more coverage given to upcoming eShop gems on both 3DS and Wii U to buoy the software selection as we wait for Nintendo’s many marquee retail exclusives of next year.
We’ll have our usual roundup of Nintendo Direct news tomorrow, so stay tuned to Eggplante for more coverage of these announcements and all things Nintendo!