The next Nintendo Direct is scheduled for this Wednesday, the company has just announced. It's billed as a “partner showcase,” with Nintendo saying it will showcase Switch games from “our publishing and development partners” in the first half of this year. It kicks off bright and early on February 21 at 9 a.m. ET.
Although Nintendo holds these showcases regularly, this one is potentially bigger than usual. Last week, Microsoft made an expected but still surprising announcement that it would start offering some of its titles on “other consoles”, a phrase that is difficult not to interpret as games coming to the Switch (and Sony's PlayStation 5 as well).
Nintendo says it will be a 25-minute presentation, so it's possible we'll hear about some games from other developers as well. But we're all expecting to hear news about what games Microsoft is going to bring to the Switch. Microsoft only said it would bring four games to other platforms, but didn't name them; the latest rumors quote Rush to Hi-Fi, Sea of Thieves, Halo And Weapons of war as likely options for making the move.
This comes at a time when Nintendo doesn't have many of its own games planned for the platform (that we know of, anyway). There's also the looming specter of a Switch 2 console; reports have just said that the material is becoming pushed back to 2025 following a planned launch at some point this year.