Nintendo Partner Direct Feb 2026 and No Other Games (Ft. Ricky Pitzalis)

**Joel** (0:03)
You're listening to the SansPants Network.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:07)
Like and subscribe, you're on. You're listening to Thumb Cramps, a show for those whose thumbs are cramping.

**Joel** (0:18)
Hey everyone, and welcome to a very special and very sneaky bonus episode of Thumb Cramps. I'm Joel, and Jackson sadly couldn't be with us today, but the person who can be with us today, and by us, I mean me and him, because there's only two of us here, it's Ricky.

**Ricky** (0:37)
Hello, I am back. I am back almost immediately.

**Joel** (0:42)
Yeah, we recorded, and look, you've read the title of the episode listeners, you know what this is about, but we recorded our episode this week, and then we pretty much finished it and record, and then Nintendo said, hey, in 24 hours from now, there's gonna be a Nintendo Partnership Direct, and we were like, hell yeah. And as two Nintendo sickos, we stayed up and watched it.

**Ricky** (1:03)
Yeah, absolutely disgusting. It wasn't too bad for me, it was only at like 11, 10, 10?

**Joel** (1:10)
Yeah, and it was 1 a.m. for me.

**Ricky** (1:11)
You had to stay up past your bedtime, way past your bedtime.

**Joel** (1:14)
Yeah, yeah, my famous bedtime of 8.30, I blew straight past that.

**Ricky** (1:19)
Yeah, do you have Fat Cat in Over East? Do you know what Fat Cat is?

**Joel** (1:23)
I have no idea what Fat Cat is.

**Ricky** (1:25)
Oh my god, this is me finding out that this is a Western, this is a Western Australian thing. So there is a character called Fat Cat on Channel 9, and then he tells you to go to bed, and after the news or whatever, I can't remember what the chronology of like the timeline of the, of the TV schedule was, but after 6 p.m. it's like Fat Cat's on, he's telling you to go to sleep, and that's when children in Western Australia go to bed.

**Joel** (1:53)
That's incredible. Yeah, our TVs don't tell us to go to bed. I guess like I knew how to go to bed as a child because I'd put on like a TV station and they'd be selling pornos, and I'd be like, I shouldn't be watching this. I'm 12, but I would watch it anyway.

**Ricky** (2:06)
You would watch it, of course. Yeah.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:07)
I'm learning.

**Ricky** (2:09)
Late night, Saturday night SBS.

**Joel** (2:11)
Oh, world movies? Yes, please.

**Ricky** (2:14)
Yeah, there's boobs in there. Yeah. Almost certainly.

**Joel** (2:19)
Almost certainly going to be boobs and either existential dread or the most intense heartache anyone's ever had.

**Ricky** (2:26)
Yeah, harrowing.

**Joel** (2:27)
Yeah.

**Ricky** (2:28)
Absolutely harrowing. And boobs.

**Joel** (2:30)
And boobs. And today we're looking at the Nintendo Partner Direct of Feb 2026 and no other games. So, Ricky, let's, like, before we get into, actually, what they announced, what was your approach with this? Cause I went crazy.

**Ricky** (2:57)
Yeah, we were talking about just going mental with the guesses, because that's what everyone does. So we're like, let's get in on it. Every major release of the last five years is coming to the Switch 2 It's coming on flawlessly. I had like, what did I, like a few of the things, actually, just one of the things that was announced last night. I was hoping for, we will get to that. But I was hoping for maybe some more Switch 2 updates. Like I've been wanting to play Witcher 3 handheld, but I don't want it to look bad and run poorly.

**Joel** (3:34)
Yeah.

**Ricky** (3:36)
Clarab Siora was really hoping for.

**Joel** (3:39)
Yeah. A metaphor, maybe.

**Ricky** (3:42)
A metaphor. Yeah, just an Atlas game. And we got none of those.

**Joel** (3:49)
No, but it was really, really funny because we were talking about it, but yesterday I reckon I watched like 10 YouTubers, like 10 to 15 minute videos doing their predictions, ranging from like very popular YouTubers to like ones with like maybe like 15,000 subs. So I was getting the whole spectrum of opinions. And it was so funny to hear people like dreaming so big, but also every single one of those videos had like, okay, here's some things that I'm like, I'm pretty much like a sure thing. And across those 10 videos, I think there was like maybe one game that came up as an a sure thing in more than two of them. So it's just so funny that people like, oh, this is a sure thing. Like Claire Obscure was claimed as a sure thing in two. And then one person was like, it's not going to happen. And I was like, that's so funny.