Fans' sentiment about yesterday's Nintendo Direct may have been quite positive, but the stock market disagrees. Today, the stock fell as much as 8% before climbing back a bit to -6.75%, and analysts are blaming it on the lineup's lack of heavy hitters, like a new Super Mario game. According to Reuters, Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a client note:
The lack of a mainline 3D Mario for this year's holiday shopping season is commercially meaningful. The Switch 2 launched last June with titles including Mario Kart World and, later, Donkey Kong Bananza. Year 2 now enters the holiday window without a franchise title of comparable pull.
Now, Nintendo's stock taking heavy hits is nothing new. It declined for five consecutive months until early May, as investors wanted a price hike for the Nintendo Switch 2. Then, when that arrived a few days later, the stock crashed by 12% amid a relatively bleak forecast for fiscal year 2027. Of course, the concerns of investors (maximizing profits) are very different from those of consumers (enjoying a healthy lineup of games).
On that count, the June 2026 Nintendo Direct absolutely delivered. Third-party publishers are showing a nearly unprecedented level of support for a Nintendo console by porting both older games and brand new titles, as evidenced by Rise of the Tomb Raider, DayZ, Devil May Cry 5, Dragon's Dogma 2, Stellar Blade, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Lies of P, RuneScape: Dragonwilds, Lords of the Fallen II, Final Fantasy Resonance, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and Kingdom Hearts IV.
Meanwhile, Nintendo is certainly not slowing down on its first-party output; yesterday's Nintendo Direct showed Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, Splatoon Raiders, Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, Xenoblade Genesis, and the long-rumored The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake. Plus, FromSoftware's The Duskbloods is sure to bring more than a few fans of the Japanese studio to the Switch 2 console.
At the same time, investors have a point: there hasn't been a new 3D Super Mario game since 2017's Odyssey. It will be ten years next year. Nintendo is likely working on a new title, and it might launch in 2027, but investors wanted reassurance, and they didn't get it. Hence the stock drop.
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About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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