During their E3 livestream, Nintendo announced that the new Animal Crossing: New Horizons will be delayed to March 2020. Many fans were disappointed but many more weren’t really surprised because the company has a big history with delaying games.
Creator of best selling video game franchises The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, F-Zero and Pikmin, Shigeru Miyamoto is famously quoted saying: “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” And that supports the fact that Nintendo’s most successful and best selling products were actually delayed projects.
Let’s take the 2017 game of the year The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild for example which eventually launched to massive success after being delayed from 2015 to 2017. We also can’t forget the famous N64 that became a console icon in the gaming world. Who knew that Nintendo actually delayed its release by several months after revealing its playable form to the public in late 1995, and also taking risks especially while having very strong competitors such as Sony and Sega.
But Nintendo affirmed that the Animal Crossing delay had a very good reason, and it is to avoid crunch time. Those hours of working extreme amounts of overtime that seriously harm employees’ mental health, especially in the video game development industry, and most specifically in Japan.
“For us, one of our key tenets is that we bring smiles to people’s faces, and we talk about that all the time. It’s our vision. Or our mission, I should say. For us, that applies to our own employees. We need to make sure that our employees have good work-life balance.”
Doug Bowser, President of Nintendo of America, IGN interview.
However, this decision had a massive cost. And Nintendo’s stock market value reportedly dropped more than $1 billion immediately after announcing the delay for Animal Crossing: New Horizon.
Most of us loyal fans are sure that Nintendo wouldn’t recklessly take a decision without a good solution planned ahead. For now, we can only wait for its upcoming releases.
Check out more of our articles about Nintendo’s E3 announcements: Breath of The Wild Sequel Announced at E3.
Jnaina Benaissa
JET Press Team
