Nintendo hosted its big summer Nintendo Direct presentation this week and it was…good. Not great, but good. I think the bevy of Nintendo leaks that have hit this year dulled the experience significantly for many folks, myself included, Nintendo stock has taken a bit of nose dive because of it, and more importantly, there’s more than a few gamers that walked away from the presentation far less excited than they should have been. So what’s next from Nintendo: Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time limited edition Switch 2 console? A proper influx of major Game Cube titles? Is there one more surprise 2026 game release?
There’s really no question that the leaky warp pipe at Nintendo this year took much of the joy and wonder out of the recent Direct – we already knew Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time remake for Switch 2 was coming, just about all of the big third-party ports leaked months ago, we already knew a new Switch Sports was going to get revealed soon, and we didn’t even get a release date for FromSoftware’s The Duskbloods.
I, by no means, think this was a complete fumble on Nintendo’s part though. The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time remake for Switch 2 did get revealed after all, and that thing is going to fly off the shelves, but it wasn’t enough. Nintendo didn’t react to the leaks and make a move to amp up excitement quite enough if you ask me. I might even suggest the entire Direct should have been cancelled in favor of a complete blow out show dedicated to the Zelda remake. Sure, folks would have been disappointed we didn’t get a full-on Direct, but perhaps Nintendo should have leaned into its big release now to give itself more time to load up the holster with 2027 teases for the September Direct.
So what’s next for Nintendo?
Well, it’s hard to imagine any of its other big IPs are going to be ready to go for 2026 – Nintendo seems to be leaning entirely on this Zelda remake.
If Ocarina of Time is indeed the only really big release left for the remainder of 2026, it had better be readying a full-on 40+ minute Direct to show the game off properly, and that rumored/leaked Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time limited edition Switch 2 console wouldn’t hurt either.
Nintendo has a history of releasing special edition consoles for its big Zelda releases (Wind Waker HD Wii U and the OLED Tears of the Kingdom Switch, to name a couple), and this is arguably going to be one of its biggest ever (at least from a nostalgic point of view).
Leakers suggested a special edition Switch 2 for the game was inbound in and around the same time the game itself leaked online. And now that we know the remake is coming in 2026, perhaps the console is the real deal as well.
It may be that Nintendo only teased us with the confirmation of the new Ocarina of Time remake specifically because a dedicated Direct was coming down the pipe soon. And perhaps it will also show off the new console then as well. Nintendo clearly needs something big to close out 2026 and the combination of the Zelda N64 remake with some hardware to drive Switch 2 sales could be exactly what it needs. Unless it completely botches the Ocarina of Time Switch 2 hardware, it will almost certainly sell out immediately (it might/will sell out even if it does botch it to be fair).
Some new and exciting GameCube games would be much appreciated – that’s certainly not going to be enough to carry Switch 2 through 2026 though – but some new Nintendo Classics are very much overdue. We are still waiting on the Mario Sunshine release, among others, and the sun is now shinin’ Nintendo.
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