For years now, Nintendo has used a series of videos it calls Nintendo Direct to inform both its audience and the press of its future plans. The videos showed a variety of different products, from games to hardware to newer Nintendo offerings like Amiibo, but they usually had one thing in common: their enthusiastic host, Satoru Iwata.
After Iwata’s passing in July at the age of 55, it was unclear whether the Nintendo Direct videos would continue without him. At the Tokyo Game Show, Nintendo confirmed that it will continue to produce Nintendo Directs, according to an interview with IGN.
What isn’t clear is who will host them. “Nintendo Directs will continue,” the company told IGN, “but we have no details to provide now on who will be featured or the topics that will be covered.”
Earlier this week Nintendo announced that it had chosen Tatsumi Kimishima as its new president, but he is a very different person than Iwata with a different background, so it’s unlikely that he will host. Nintendo of America’s Reggie Fils-Aime and Nintendo of Europe’s Satoru Shibata have both appeared in previous Nintendo Directs and will likely continue to do so, but it’s unclear if either will now host future videos.
Nintendo’s decision to keep the videos coming certainly makes sense, as 2016 looks to be a big year for the company. Before Iwata’s passing he said on multiple occasions that more details on the company’s next-generation console, codenamed the NX, would be coming in 2016. The company will also soon see the first mobile games from its partnership with DeNA released before the end of the year.
For a glimpse of what Nintendo’s future could look like, look no further than Pokemon GO, a mobile game developed by Ingress developer Niantic announced last week. The game take’s Pokemon’s “catch ’em all” mantra into the real world, with players finding Pokemon in their own neighborhoods.
