Welcome to Kotaku's split screen, the show where we talk about video games, one very specific topic at a time.

For this week's episode, I'm your host, Ethan Gatch.

And joining me today are my co-host, Lisa Marie Segarra. Hi there.

And Isaiah Colbert.

What's popping?

How are you both doing?

I'm doing great this beautiful Wednesday.

Yeah, yeah. Everything's pretty copacetic on my end, too.

I'm doing great because I've been knee-deep in Nintendo stuff,

working on a post about all of the games the company has coming out this fall.

And on the back of the Nintendo Direct last week,

and looking at the release calendar,

there's just a ton, there's a ton of stuff.

So I thought for this week's episode,

we talk about sort of the Nintendo universe and Nintendo

Direx and sort of how the company, you know, has become this like post-game internet phenomenon.

You know, like, was it Thursday?

Last week, the direct was trending all through the day.

And like, it's weird that it's become this like huge, not just like me on

my computer looking at game news, but like a cultural event. Yeah, it's really interesting seeing

how obviously we have a very different relationship to these events and like gaming companies

releasing stuff. And so I'm sometimes continuously surprised at how

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