A report from Eurogamer suggests that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will not be ready in time for the launch of the Nintendo Switch in March 2017.
According to Eurogamer, sources close to Nintendo have detailed the current state of the game's development to them, which suggests that Breath of the Wild will not be ready for March of next year. Eurogamer says that was corroborated with information detailed by Emily Rogers, a well-known source for unreleased Nintendo news.
She has received information about the current state of localization for Breath of the Wild, which is taking longer than Nintendo anticipated. According to her sources, localization may not be done until the end of this year, with somewhere between at least four to six months of testing to follow. According to her, it looks more likely that Breath of the Wild will be a Summer 2017 release. Eurogamer states that this information matches up with the state of the development that they received.
Nintendo has never come out and said that Breath of the Wild was a Switch launch title, just that it will be released sometime in 2017. None of that changed, even with the announcement with the Nintendo Switch. While Breath of the Wild may not make it in time, Eurogamer has received information that the next Mario title will be ready for launch.
We had the opportunity to play some of Breath of the Wild at E3 this year, so check out or hands-on impression here if you want to know more.
Quick Take
I think this is bad news for Nintendo. While as cool as the Switch looks, Nintendo relies heavily on their first party titles for sales of their consoles. We haven't seen a mainline title Zelda game in a long time and to have one launch aside a new console would have been massive. They are really going to need some of their other flagships there at launch. More than just a new Mario game.What do you think of Breath of the Wild not being a Switch launch title? Do you think that will have an effect on Switch sales?
