The second Nintendo Direct of the year took place on June 21, with the legendary video game company packing a lot of announcements within its 40-minute odd runtime. While it did not match the numbers from the first iteration of the year on February 8, it did end up becoming the third-most watched showcase in the series.
Nintendo had quite a few announcements up its sleeve on Wednesday, including a brand new 2D Mario game in Super Mario Bros. Wonder and a Super Mario RPG Remake. It also revealed that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom would get Amiibos for Zelda and Ganondorf during Holiday 2023.
The Nintendo Direct June 2023 hit 2.4M Peak Viewers, achieved towards the end of the broadcast. Some other major news to come out of this showcase event was a release date and a fresh trailer for Detective Pikachu 2. Set to come out on October 6, this new title in the Detective Pikachu series delves into the origins of Detective Pikachu, with players getting lots of mysteries to solve across Ryme City.
It also recorded 2.1M Hours Watched and 1.8M Average Viewers over an airtime of one hour and ten minutes. Not unexpectedly, the official Japanese Twitch channel was the most popular and watched, hitting higher numbers than the next two entries on the podium combined. What helped was that viewers also got a confirmation that the Metal Gear Solid Collection Vol. 1 will be released on Switch.
Come October 24, fans can enjoy the following games from the franchise: Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, and Snake's Revenge. They will also have access to a screenplay book consisting of the in-game text of each title and a master book that details the story and its characters.
When it comes to the most popular games on chat across the event, it was the Pikmin series that came first with 21K mentions. Pikmin 4 — releasing on July 21 — got a gameplay reveal and disclosed more details to fans, alongside another proclamation that a demo for the title would arrive on June 28. They also found out that Pikmin 1 and 2 would arrive in the Nintendo Switch eShop later that day, with these versions arriving in HD.
The news related to Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s Amiibo (18K) made it the second-most mentioned video game at the Nintendo Direct June 2023. Third was the Metal Gear Solid Collection Vol. 1 collection, which got 17K mentions as fans on the handheld device are excited to get their hands on this legendary series.
Super Mario RPG Remake was fourth, with Sonic Superstars rounding off the top five of this rankings. The latter — revealed at Summer Game Fest 2023 — got a new gameplay trailer and showed fans of the Blue Blur how it would look in action. It is set for a fall release.
When comparing the two Nintendo Directs held in 2023, the one held at the start of this year shades ahead on all metrics. It did 15.7%, 6.1%, and 1.3% better in terms of HW, PV, and AV, respectively, which were negligible falls for the June edition. What helped the February showcase was the massive hype around The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which received a new gameplay trailer, a Collector's Edition reveal, and a Link Amiibo.
However, both events made it into the top three for most watched Nintendo Directs across the series, falling in the second and third places. Leading the charge across all metrics is the first such video game exhibition held, the Nintendo Direct E3 2021 from June 15, 2021. It did 3.1M HW, 3.8M PV, and 1.9M AV over an airtime of one hour and 40 minutes.
The first half of the year has been great for new video games and remakes, with the likes of Sony, Ubisoftm, Capcom and now Nintendo making the most of fan anticipation to put up solid showcase events. With many games to release and the second half of the year almost underway, much more good news and viewership data will make their way to fans, which makes it all the more exciting for those waiting.