Nintendo is playing things very safe

Tuesday The Nintendo Direct show I felt it was an important moment for the company. With the Switch 2 heading into its second holiday season, one in which the hardware will be more expensive because of the high costit was an opportunity for Nintendo to sell a new audience to its latest console – but that’s not what happened. While there were some interesting titles, there wasn’t much that felt new. In fact, the two main components of the Switch 2 that will fill the 2026 calendar are all updates from the Nintendo 64 era.

In case you missed it, the last reveal of the Direct was a redesign The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Switch 2. We don’t know when, exactly, it’s launching, but Nintendo says it will be out this year. The brief teaser didn’t reveal much about what the game will look like, nor how it will differ from the N64 original, so you can only wait. Ocarina-Focused Direct in the coming months that will explain more. Every time it comes out, the Ocarina A remake will follow Star Fox remake, which is launching later this month in an effort to update Nintendo’s long-running sci-fi series for a modern audience.

It’s not like Nintendo of old was immune to remakes and re-releases. Its best-selling free-to-play game, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch, and a port of the Wii U title. But looking at the upcoming schedule for the Switch 2 that is dominated by duplicates, including that there is no Zelda or Super Mario has the original game on the console (yet), it makes me worry that Nintendo might be too rigid in its timing of the Switch. This seems like a scary proposition in 2026, when almost every major video game company is struggling to cope with the upheaval of the industry. Nothing is certain right now.

At its best, Nintendo strikes the right balance between being conservative and being creative. The Switch 2 needs some bold ideas to push the scale in the right direction.