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A Direct for February was basically guaranteed, but now it's confirmed it'll be a lower key "Partner Showcase" Direct rather than a 40+ minute long "major" Direct. Given all the speculation Nintendo is planning on releasing their Switch successor within the next year, I expect Direct announcements are going to continue being more lowkey until Nintendo finally does a big blowout reveal on the Switch 2.

One of the only expectations I personally have is I think we'll see one or two of Microsoft's planned multiplatform ports confirmed here. The one I feel confident about is Hi-Fi Rush, and I also get the feeling Obsidian's Pentiment might get a shadow drop.

In reguards to the next Nintendo console, I'm starting to wonder what chip die they will choose to manufacture their products. The switch uses the 20nm process from 2017, and by comparison the steam deck uses the 7nm process from 2022. Right now, nintendo's best short term options would be to use 5nm or 3nm since those are readily available. I doubt they would wait for the upcoming 2nm fabs to become operational in the upcoming year.

As a side note, silicon can only produce chips at a minimum of 2nm, which would be a single atom in size. The limits of silicon based chips has essentually been reached, as a smaller transistor would require different materials such as carbon nanotubes.

It's possible the next generation of computer chips (and therefore game consoles) is going to be the last made with silicon.