Nintendo's Yearly Earnings Briefing: A Quick History Lesson.

 

It's a weird time for Nintendo right now. 

We're on the cusp of their biggest game of the last four years, but at the same time, we're looking an extremely barren lineup of upcoming games at the moment. This is not something that normally happens. Nintendo' on the gaming side has been very quiet since February. Tonight, however, they'll finally start to speak up a bit. 

That's because it's time for Nintendo's annual results to be shown. This is the time of year where Nintendo gives updates on sales numbers and how much money they've made over the past 12 months, as well as giving us an idea of their plans for the next 12 months.

I decided to go and do a brief history lesson of the events.

2013:

We start off with a bombshell. At 2013's meeting, Nintendo announced that they would not be having a formal stage conference at E3 2013, and would instead do a Nintendo Direct instead. This, of course, caused the entire Internet to lose their collective minds. This was once again Nintendo being very far ahead of the curve, as in the current year, this is how most companies do video game presentations now. Things like E3 conferences have died off and Nintendo was just the first to see the writing on the wall. 

2014:

This was a fun one, we have a double feature here now. 

Firstly, out of nowhere, just mere hours before the briefing, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company formally announced Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Very little was shown, just box art, logos and a press release, but that was pretty much all they needed. 

Secondly, this year, a month before their E3 Digital Event, Nintendo gave us a update on something they had actually announced in January of that year, and that was Nintendo formally joining the toys to life phenomenon that was taking over the world at that point. We got to see the a prototype Mario figure that go on to become known as an "amiibo". You know how the rest goes by now. 

2015: 

This is arguably the biggest announcement made at this events, and I'm sure you know where I'm going with this. In 2015's meeting, Nintendo formally announced a partnership with Universal Studios to develop theme parks based on Nintendo's properties at their amusement parks all around the world. This would obviously go on to be one of the biggest Nintendo related events, ever. With two enormously successful theme parks under their belts already, and a third set to hit Orlando in 2025, it's very obvious that Nintendo hit the jackpot here. Saying this was an insane day when this was announced would be a massive understatement.

2016:

Oh boy. We get to this year. Oh man. This was something. 

So, at this point in 2016, the Wii U was effectively dead, the 3DS wasn't having a great time that year in terms of games, and Nintendo was dead silent about their next console, the "NX". We were all bummed and miserable, but we all had hope that Nintendo would open up soon before E3, and that NX would be out before the end of the year.

Then, reality set in. 

April 26th, 2016. 

My god. 

Nintendo announced:

-NX would release in March of 2017, meaning another year of almost nothing.

-The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was delayed AGAIN. Would launch on both NX and Wii U next year.

-The Wii U version of BOTW would be the ONLY game playable at E3 2016.

-No NX ANYTHING at E3. No games, no specs, no nothing.

-Nintendo would announce NX games and details later in the year.

-Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing would receive mobile games. 

This was... something. It was gut punch after gut punch. I literally was in disbelief. When things were bad, I didn't actually think things would get worse, but they did. I was absolutely crestfallen and many other people at the time can attest to feeling the exact same way as I did.  We had to do something many of us don't like doing, and that's...

Waiting.

Obviously, everything worked out in the end, and Switch would become the juggernaut Nintendo needed it to be and much more, but damn, short term, this stung.

2017:

This one was a lot more brief and straight to the point. Nintendo randomly announced one final revision to the 3DS family at this briefing, that being the New 3DS XL. That's it, really. 

2018:

Riding high off of Switch and 3DS' being huge successes the previous year, Nintendo was full steam ahead here. A few hours before the conference, they announced a brand new mobile game, called Dragalia Lost, as well as partnership with the creators, Cygames. Nintendo also announced the retirement of then-current president Tatsumi Kimishima, who took over after the the untimely passing of Satoru Iwata in 2015, and that they would be appointing Shuntaro Furukawa as the new head.

Obviously the big one was Nintendo announcing their plans for E3 that year:

This was definitely an interesting one. It was a time of big change for Nintendo, with a new  president taking over, as well as the 3DS also winding down that year. Nintendo also made it clear that E3 was gonna be all about Smash, and that very much turned out to be the case. Everyone is here!  

2019: 

Nintendo came off an even bigger year for switch this go 'round, the only thing here that was announced was done a few hours ahead of the briefing, and that was the announcement of Super Mario Maker 2's release date, done in a very short, but very cute trailer. Nintendo had tons of games already announced for that year, so they had no reason to announce much here anyway.

2020: 

We all know how this goes. The pandemic arrived and Nintendo, alongside everyone else took it very, very seriously. They noted in their briefing that they were taking all precautions needed to avoid spreading the virus, and from all accounts, they did very well. They noted that their software lineup would obviously have issues but that they would try and release software as soon as they could. No announcements here, but exactly a week later, they did announce Paper Mario: The Origami King, so it's likely that would have been the game they announced here if they had announced something anyway, so I'll count it, just on the basis of it being a pandemic.

2021:

This was another year where Nintendo really didn't need to announce much of anything. Switch was holding the fort down and we were a month away from Nintendo's absolutely stellar E3 showing. They didn't need anything.

2022: 

This one's pretty straightforward as well. Nintendo hosted a Nindies within the same 24 hours of their briefing, as well as launching an overview trailer for the hotly anticipated (at the time) Mario Strikers: Battle League.

So yeah, there's a fun history lesson regarding some times Nintendo actually announces stuff at or around their big meetings. Will they or won't they announce something tomorrow? 

Who knows. It's a coin flip at this point. Nintendo is a weird company. 

We'll just have to wait and see. 

Now, to finish up those Mario articles. See ya soon!