Topic: Kirby Air Riders 2 Getting Direct August 19

[Shaymin]

Sakurai just cannot resist the siren call of a long show.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/72100/kirby-air-riders-2-getting-direct-august-19

The third Nintendo presentation in four weeks has been announced and it's a single game show for something we know little about.

Kirby Air Riders 2 will be getting a dedicated Direct tomorrow (August 19) at 9 a.m. ET / 6 a.m. PT. The notice posted in the Nintendo Today app confirmed the show would be 45 minutes long.

Originally, Air Riders 2 was announced in April with a brief snippet of gameplay, a 2025 release window, and the announcement that Masahiro Sakurai was leading development.

[Ian Sane]

I figured we would get a Direct after Drag x Drive came out.  Somehow the running gag of not revealing Metroid Prime 4's release date continues.

45 minutes seems really long for one game.  That long would be hell for a game I'm not interested in and for a game I am I feel like that would spoil too much.  I guess I would have thought it was awesome when I was 10 years old and didn't care about spoilers.

I only know the original Kirby Air Ride as that Gamecube game where you press one button and it virtually plays itself. It came across as barely a game.  And in general Kirby games are usually pretty good but never something I'm really excited about.  If I'm going to skip a first party release, Kirby tends to get the cut more times than not.  So I'm not going to check out the 45 minute Direct, maybe a shorter trailer if they have one.

I am curious as to when the release date will be.  This might be an indication of how Nintendo wants to reveal information now.  They seem to want to do one game at a time.  So is Kirby coming out a month from now?  Two months?  We can probably assume that the lead time from this Direct to the release date will be similar for other future game-specific Directs and that will apply to the other first party releases that are supposedly coming out this year.

Still I don't understand why Nintendo wants to drip feed us this info.  Having a new console with a barren release schedule doesn't give people confidence in your product so why have it appear that way when there actually are releases coming soon?

[Mop it up]

A Direct for just this game, and it's 45 minutes? Wow, makes me wonder if this thing is gonna be huge!

[Khushrenada]

It's going to become Super Smash Riders instead!

[broodwars]

45 minutes is a lot of time to spend on telling players to hold the A Button.

[Ian Sane]

So they revealed Kirby's release date as Nov 20.  That is a lot later than I expected.  I figured worse case scenario it would be October.

Now what are the odds Nintendo releases anything in 2025 after Nov 20?  After that you risk missing the Christmas shopping window.  So I fear Metroid is moving to 2026.  Why would they give Kirby a Direct first if it was the later game in the release schedule?  You figure they would do all of this in order.  So a Nov 20 date suggests that nothing that has been announced but doesn't have a date will get released before then.  And it's late Nov too.  A Dec release would probably be at the beginning of the month.  I can't imagine Kirby on Nov 20 and Metroid only a few weeks later.

[broodwars]

Metroid seemingly being delayed to 2026 (or Beyond) is a real blow. Looks like there's really no reason to own a Switch 2 in 2025 unless you really like mascot racing games. I mainly bought mine to play Switch 1 games with performance that isn't soul-drainingly bad. Guess that's just going to have to do.