Technologies

Nintendo Direct February 2023: How to Watch, Start Time and Expectations

We’ll get 40 minutes about Nintendo Switch games, so you can expect a look at The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Nintendo will tease games coming to Switch in its February 2023 Nintendo Direct on Wednesday, it said in a tweet Tuesday. The Feb. 8 livestream will include «roughly 40 minutes of information» about titles launching in the first half of the year, a lineup that includes the highly anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

When does the Nintendo Direct start?

The Nintendo Direct livestream starts at 2 p.m. PT (5 p.m. ET) on Wednesday, which is 10 p.m. GMT or 9 a.m. Thursday AEST.

How to watch the Nintendo Direct

The event will be streaming from Nintendo’s YouTube channel. We’ve embedded the YouTube link above, so you can watch right here.

What games will Nintendo show during its Nintendo Direct?

The majority of Switch owners are eagerly awaiting The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the sequel to 2017’s Breath of the Wild, which got a trailer during last September’s Nintendo Direct. It’s out on May 12, so we can expect details about that game’s story and gameplay mechanics. The game briefly appeared on Nintendo’s digital eShop for $70 on Tuesday, instead of the usual $60, but that figure has since been removed.

Pikmin 4 is scheduled for release in 2023, so Nintendo will likely give us a look at the colorful real-time strategy game and narrow down the release date.

Nintendo will probably announce a new release date for Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, the remake collection featuring two Game Boy Advance turn-based strategy games. It was originally scheduled to come out last April, but was delayed due to the war in Ukraine.

It could reveal details of an expansion or update for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, since those games are expected to add compatibility with the Pokemon Home mobile app soon. That might be held for Pokemon Day, Feb. 27, since the company typically announces something big in a livestream celebrating the series’ anniversary.

Immediate upcoming titles include Theatrhythm Final Bar Line on Feb. 16, Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe and Octopath Traveler 2 on Feb. 24 and Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon on March 17.

We’ll probably get hints about Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s next batch of downloadable tracks, since wave 4 should be arriving soon, as well as updates about when Mario Party 3, Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2, 1080 Snowboarding and Excitebike 64 will be added to the N64 retro library in the Switch Online subscription service.

It’s also possible the company will look at upcoming nongame projects: its first US Super Nintendo World theme park opens next week and the Super Mario Bros. movie hits theaters on April 7.

People anticipating Metroid Prime 4 probably shouldn’t get their hopes up though — it’s been nearly six years since that game was announced and we have yet to see gameplay. At least we got Metroid Dread.

Could a Switch successor be revealed during the Nintendo Direct?

It’s unlikely that Nintendo will take the focus away from Tears of the Kingdom and other upcoming games, but we’ll likely see the company’s next console soon. The Switch will be six years old in March, and the technical issues of games like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have highlight the hardware’s advanced age (along with Sony and Microsoft’s technically superior rivals, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X).

The Switch sold 122.55 million units overall as of the end of 2022, the company announced its latest earnings report on Tuesday, putting it ahead of the PS4 and making it the No. 3 bestselling console of all time. It’s now behind only the Nintendo DS (at 154 million) and PS2 (155 million).

Despite hitting this milestone, Bloomberg noted Nintendo missed console sales targets toward the year’s end. Company boss Shuntaro Furukawa didn’t answer questions about its next console, it noted. Last year, VGC reported that Furukawa said that a smooth transition to the next generation of hardware is «a major focus» for the company — we can expect to get a firmer sense of its plans this year.

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Apple’s New Smart Home Display Delayed Until Fall Over Siri Issues

It has been nearly a year and a half since the company announced the AI-powered product.

Your home could get smarter with Apple’s Siri, but it will have to wait a few more months. Bloomberg reported the iPad-shaped AI home hub won’t be ready until September, several months after the company was hoping to launch it this spring. Apple engineers first need to complete work on a new and improved Siri assistant for the home device, code-named J490, according to Bloomberg.

Apple was hoping to release J490 this month, along with a slew of other new devices, including the iPhone 17e, MacBook Neo, MacBook Air M5, new Pro models, and iPad Air M4. Apple first teased the smart home display in November 2024.

A representative for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Siri is Apple’s virtual assistant that uses voice recognition and AI to fulfill a variety of tasks and commands, along with intriguing uses. You might use Siri to find your iPhone — «Hey Siri, where are you?» — or to hear the weather forecast — «Siri, what will the weather be today?» Siri is available on iPhones, MacBooks and iPads. It was launched in 2011 as a feature of the iPhone 4S.

As CNET reported last month, Apple engineers have struggled to push the upgraded Siri assistant out the door. It isn’t fast enough, gets confused by complex commands and doesn’t interact well with other Apple AI models. The company is also wrestling with how much personal data to access to inform the AI, and the new Siri is not yet able to complete in-app tasks, such as finding a photo and posting it to socials, all with one command.

It has been nearly two years since Apple announced that it would give Siri a major upgrade. In the meantime, competitors like Alexa Plus and Gemini for Home have entered the marketplace.

Tech tester Jon Rettinger, whose YouTube channel has 1.66 million subscribers, says the repeated delays in upgrading Siri can «erode» confidence in Apple’s ability to keep up in the AI race.

«Apple as a whole is still one of the strongest companies on the planet. But their AI play is clearly the weakest link in an otherwise very strong chain,» Rettinger told CNET.

Rettinger said he has had issues getting Siri to complete basic commands, such as setting two alarms at the same time, and that it’s a bit of «a mess» right now.

«Having said that, the iPhone has such massive market penetration that I’m not sure it will actually matter in the end. Which is kind of wild when you think about it,» Rettinger said.

Facial recognition for residents

The hardware for the forthcoming smart home display has already been finished. It resembles an iPad and can be either attached to a wall or rest on a half-domed-shaped base, the Bloomberg report said.

The device will be equipped with facial recognition, so when residents walk up to it, they will be shown personalized data such as music preferences, news headlines, appointments, reminders, tasks and so on.

The screen interface will include a bunch of circular app icons, similar to the display on an Apple Watch. The Bloomberg report said the smart home display will be the first of several home devices by Apple. Future products include a tabletop robotic limb with a 9-inch screen, a smart security camera and a Face ID-enabled smart doorbell.