Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase confirmed for this week, following Xbox multiplatform announcement

A Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase has been confirmed for later this week.

In an announcement earlier today, Nintendo confirmed that the Partner Showcase, which focuses on third-party releases rather than Nintendo's own produced games, will take place on Wednesday, February 21.

The 25-minute video will focus on "Nintendo Switch games coming in the first half of 2024 from our publishing and development partners." Rather than a stream, the showcase will be released via YouTube, at 06:00 PT/09:00 ET/14:00 GMT.

Nintendo's announcement comes off the back of a recent Xbox multiplatform announcement, in which Microsoft confirmed that four of its games would be coming to new platforms. Xbox boss Phil Spencer didn't announce what those games would be, stating that the privilege of revealing new partnerships lay with the developers, but it's thought that several of those games would be coming to Nintendo.

Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment are understood to be the first two the games releasing on Nintendo Switch, with Sea of Thieves and Grounded also thought to be coming to new platforms. Those games seem less likely to play nicely with the Switch hardware, but it's certainly possible that they could make the jump. There's no guarantee that Nintendo is directly involved with any of these multiplatform deals, but some rumors suggested that the company had delayed its Direct specifically because of the Xbox podcast last week.

These upcoming Nintendo Switch games probably won't be shown off this week, but we can still be excited about them anyway.