 Oh, hi there. Um, don't mind me, I was just on Twitter trying to look up information on the latest Nintendo Direct which is totally coming this week. Or next week, or next month, or, huh, look here's a tweet where I said like two weeks ago that I was for sure thought that a Direct would come the first week of February. Um, yeah, that tweet can go exactly where this phone is going. So, obviously, I don't know when a Nintendo Direct is coming. I hear things behind the scenes sometimes, but they don't always come to fruition. And what's interesting to me isn't even the Direct which I'm super excited about and all the potential in the world and who knows when it's coming. Uh, but what actually interests me is the hype cycle around Nintendo Directs because Nintendo is quietly over the last how many years become a master of their own design and when I say a master, I, of course, mean about how to create hype cycles around events without even talking about them. Now, we've obviously had all the hype over the years for E3 and PAX and, well, I don't know, any event, the game awards, events that we know are coming are scheduled and that Nintendo typically shows up to. But we also know every single year, we're gonna have two, we're gonna have three, we're gonna have four, five, six, a whole bunch of Nintendo Directs, whether they're individual game Directs like for the upcoming release of Animal Crossing New Leap or if it's just a general Direct, which is what most of the hype exists for. Well, that and sort of would get pretty hyped for those Nindee ones as well. But here's the thing, we get hyped over the idea a Direct is even coming. It doesn't matter who says it, it doesn't matter if I say it, a random person on Twitter, a comment on a video that just gets a lot of likes, it just, everyone wants the new Direct. And to me, it's interesting to see that how Nintendo Directs and Nindies and whatever you want to call all the various events, digital events that Nintendo puts out there, how it's kind of come a culture icon on its own. I don't know that Nintendo could ever stop making Nintendo Directs because of how iconic the hype cycle for them has become. Every single day, every single week, every single month, there is new hype and new rumors surrounding Nintendo Directs. You have YouTuber after YouTuber reporting out videos, talking about when's the next Direct coming is this coming, the last rumor, there's two Directs coming, General Direct and one for Animal Crossing New Leaf, and all the Direct will be this week, all the Direct will be next week, all it'll have the Switch Pro, it'll have Breath of the Wild 2, all we don't actually know anything at all about when these things are coming, but everyone and their mother wants to take a stab at it. And it's interesting because I think we as gamers like to be excited. See, I think Nintendo Directs are almost sort of a savior, as it were, of video game culture. Now, let me explain what that means. That's a pretty loaded statement. Video game culture, I don't think needs to be saved on the whole, but there is a lot of negativity in video game reporting and just video game culture on the whole. Sure, there's positive news. I think the reaction to the Division II's announce expansion pack today has been rather positive, but there's a lot of negativity as well, both around the people that cover video games and the people who play them and obviously the people who create them. Obviously, there's been the negativity around the Pokemon Leaker and Nintendo going after them and outing the whole website, but beyond that, there's just a lot of negativity in the gaming community. Some of it's justified. Admittedly, me saying things like Animal Crossing has microtransactions without the caveat that it could have. And here's why I think that. It creates a negative impression and obviously as negativity. And I'm not going to pretend that I avoid negative statements and negative type videos on my channel, but what gets lost in all of it is that the hype around Nintendo Directs is always a positive thing in the gaming community, not just Nintendo fans. There's Microsoft and Sony fans and PC gamers looking forward to Nintendo Directs as well because we all want to see what's Nintendo going to do. Sometimes out of more big curiosity or just because we really want to know what's next for a platform we all own and enjoy. Now, there's something like 60% of Switch owners also own a PlayStation 4. So when I say it's something that everyone seems to look forward to, I do mean everyone, especially since the Switch came out. And it leaves me wondering and questioning a lot of things in life, but it doesn't make me question what is so great about being a gamer? And it sees positive moments of hype for something that we don't even know if it's worth being hyped about because we don't know what's going to be announced. That excites me the most. And it used to be that gaming Christmas at E3 was the one time per year that we could all as a gaming community come together and get hype. But as E3 has become less relevant over the years, starting with Nintendo Directs and PlayStation events and Xbox events and PSX and whatever, E3 is still pretty hype, but not quite as hype as it once was. We've got to this point where everyone is following Nintendo's example and now we get the PlayStation experience stuff or the Xbox streams. I forget what they call those little Xbox shows. Sorry, I probably should have looked it up before I started this video. Reality is everyone's following Nintendo's example and they're doing this because Nintendo has created positive momentum in the video game space. Even during the Wii U and 3DS era where Nintendo was kind of seeing some lows as a company, they were able to generate hype even still for these unknown mystery events. Ooh, is the next system going to be available? Ooh, are we going to find out more about Zelda Wii U that was announced in 2014? What's happening next at Nintendo? Excites gamers everywhere. And it's starting to excite people for the PlayStation stuff, the Microsoft stuff, and anyone else who decides to use this format as well. And as much as it's cool to see that Limited Run Games is going to have their own live press conference at E3, which is really, really neat to see a company try to save E3 as they claim. That's kind of their mantra this year. It's also nice to see that there's positive momentum in other parts of the year as well. Positive electricity around gaming. And Nintendo is largely to thanks for that and Nintendo Direct Hype is largely to thanks for that. So yes, now to the end of time, you're going to see YouTube video after YouTube video, tweet storm after tweet storm. Everyone trying to predict when the next Direct's going to come. You're going to see negative reactions to when Direct's hit, positive reactions, all that stuff over what's announced in them. But one thing we can all agree on as a gaming community is it's really exciting to think about what's next. And I think we've always had these debates about what's next, you know, hey, what's happening for Nintendo after the Switch? What's the Xbox Series X going to be like? What's the PlayStation 5, you know, consumer version going to look like? Not the one that we've seen leaked now for developers. What's the consumer version going to look like? How powerful is it going to be? What are the games going to be like this, that, and the other thing? It's always exciting to think about the future of gaming. And that's what Nintendo Direct's do every single year. Multiple times a year. Any possible month one can be dropped. And it creates all this excitement over what the future of gaming is, well, for this thing right now, or for whatever Nintendo does next. And that is such a positive momentum push for gaming because as I said, there is a lot of negativity. We all are aware of the negativity in gaming, the Gamergate stuff in the past. And just everything surrounding video games always seems to have this negative connotation. Even like particular popular YouTubers that do something stupid and get in trouble with the law or whatever the case might be. It's nice to have a positive reminder that there is something good and fresh to look forward to to help us push gaming in a forward moving pattern. And Nintendo Direct's do that. So what's the point of this video? I guess just to celebrate Nintendo and the Nintendo Direct and that they even do it and what Direct's have meant for this industry of negativity surrounding everything for most of the year until we get to an E3 to now there's kind of a positive conversation point every month. When are we going to get the next Direct? What's going to be in that Direct? What games are going to be announced? What games are not going to be announced? Are they going to be game delays? Are we going to see the third party games? What's the next big indie title coming to Switch? Is Microsoft going to bring over more of their indie style games over? Oriental Blind Forest is coming. Are we going to get the sequel? Like there's all these crazy stuff around Nintendo Direct that just kind of make butterflies in your stomach a little bit if you've ever enjoyed a game on a Nintendo platform. So yeah, I don't know when the next Nintendo Direct is. Maybe it's tomorrow. Maybe it's Thursday. Maybe it's next week. Maybe it's next month. I have no idea. Maybe we don't even get anything until E3. But what I guarantee you there will be are many videos, many tweets, and many hype around whatever and whenever the next Nintendo Direct is. Now what I want you guys to do is go down to the comments below and let me know what about Nintendo Directs and the example they are setting for the industry. And how Sony and Microsoft seem to be following suit. Let me know down in the comments below what you think Nintendo Directs mean for the video game industry. What do you think is particularly awesome about the fact we get Nintendo Directs or the hype and the build-ups in Nintendo Directs? Do you think it's too much? Obviously some people think over positivity is an issue. I don't really think over positivity is an issue. To be honest, there's so much negativity in the world. Let's get overly positive about something we don't know about because why not? It's a lot better than being negative all the time. And yeah, if you enjoyed this video and you want some more hypothetical discussion videos like this, let me know down in the comments below as well. It's kind of a different video. It's not news. It's more of a kind of a think piece, right? What do Nintendo Directs mean for the video game industry? I want you guys to answer that question down below. Now, I am Nathaniel Robledance from Nintendo Prime. I want to thank you guys so much for tuning into this video. If you enjoyed it, drop a like, comment below. Obviously, subscribe for more content. Hit that bell icon so you get notifications for all the live streams or you're supposed to get notifications for the live streams in every video. And obviously, enjoy the next game you play on Switch or on PlayStation or on Xbox or PC or heck. If you like gaming on your phone, which I guess I dropped my phone in the trash. So I guess I'm done doing that. You know, let me know. In fact, let's end it with this. What's also your favorite game coming out this year that we're currently aware of? All right, folks. Thank you so much. And I'll catch you in the next video.