Nintendo’s First Direct Showcase of 2024 Will Take Place This Week

Nintendo has announced the year’s first Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase, scheduled to take place February 21, at 6am PT (7.30pm IST). The showcase is confirmed to be around 25 minutes long and will focus on games coming to the Nintendo Switch in the first half of 2024. The event will be available to watch on Nintendo’s YouTube channel on-demand. There are no further details available about the games that will be presented at the Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase, but one could expect a few surprises, especially with Microsoft confirming last week that four Xbox-exclusive titles would be released on PS5 and the Switch.

Nintendo confirmed its first showcase of 2024 in its post on X. While the company did not provide more details about the contents of the Nintendo Direct, it said that the showcase would feature Nintendo Switch games coming in the first half of 2024 from its publishing and development partners.

The announcement comes days after reports of Nintendo telling game publishers that its successor to the Nintendo Switch will be delayed till the early months of 2025. Nintendo Switch 2 was expected to debut around the holiday season of 2024, but now the console may not arrive until March 2025 at the earliest.

Nintendo reportedly has a relatively slim lineup of games coming to the Switch this year; analysts believe that the company is saving its biggest first-party titles for the Switch successor. Fans have long expected Nintendo to announce a sequel for Super Mario Odyssey, which came out for the Switch in 2017. The Mario maker, however, is unlikely to do so until it reveals the next-generation Nintendo Switch.

Last week, Microsoft confirmed that four of its first-party games would be released on PS5 and Nintendo Switch. While the Xbox owner refrained from naming the games coming to Sony and Nintendo’s consoles, sources familiar with the company’s plan have said its exclusive titles going multi-platform include Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves and Grounded. The upcoming Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase could see one or some of these games confirmed for the Nintendo Switch.

Both Xbox and PlayStation have already held their first games showcase of the year. Xbox announced Bethesda’s Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at its Developer Direct event early last month, while PlayStation provided details on over 15 games at its first State of Play of the year on January 31.