Tuesday's Nintendo Direct was the final major showcase of the Summer Game Fest, and it showed a company in flux. On one hand, there is the traditional, quirky-yet-nostalgic Nintendo showing off new games such as Rhythm Heaven Groove, Nintendo Switch Sports Resort and the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Then you have the "new" Nintendo that has a new-ish console (it is now a year old, after all) capable of playing more graphics-intensive games.
Thanks to the power of the Switch 2, Nintendo is, for the first time since the Gamecube, able to hang with Microsoft and Sony when it comes to running games that look beautiful. But because the Switch 2 has only been out for a year, developers are slowly bringing their games to the new console. This gave this year's big Nintendo Direct an almost hand-me-down feel.
Titles such as Stellar Blade, Dragon's Dogma 2, Lies of P, Devil May Cry 5 and others have been out on other platforms for years. Seeing them so prominently featured in a Nintendo Direct, it gives the feeling that the hardware is already dated. To counter that, Nintendo needs to push more of its own games into the forefront, and that didn't happen in this show.
It was exciting to see the reveal of Kingdom Hearts 4, Xenoblade Genesis and the Ocarina of Time remake, but Nintendo needs to put more of itself out there if it wants to try and sell more Switch 2s during the ongoing memory shortage that's increasing the prices of even old hardware. The company needs to establish a big user base, and that's not going to happen with 3-year-old games with slightly less impressive graphics than other platforms and sold at full price.
Nintendo needs to stop reminding everyone that it just caught up to Microsoft and Sony when it comes to third-party games. Instead, its messaging should be that someone buying a Switch 2 will get a treasure trove of great Nintendo games without missing out on other AAA games.
Here are all the trailers from the Nintendo Direct June 2026.
