(Bloomberg) — Nintendo Co. fell by more than 4% in Tokyo on Wednesday after announcing that it will delay the launch of the next Zelda game to 2023, spurring concern over software revenue in the next fiscal year.
Zelda franchise producer Eiji Aonuma revealed in a video presentation that the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would hit the market in spring 2023 instead of this year. On Wednesday, the Kyoto-based company halted a six-day run of gains fueled in part by a weakening yen, which is favorable to its international business.
“The game should sell 10 million copies quickly once released, and the delay led to speculation that Nintendo’s software sales in the coming fiscal year would drop at least by that much,” Ace Research Institute analyst Hideki Yasuda said.
Aonuma didn’t explain the delay in his clip. The Zelda series, originally created by Nintendo creative fellow Shigeru Miyamoto, has long been iconic among gaming fans worldwide and in the U.S, the company’s largest market. Breath of the Wild, released in tandem with the Switch’s debut in March 2017, helped drive the gadget’s launch sales and so far has sold more than 25.8 million copies, fourth behind only Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on the platform.
The share decline, which was magnified by the rebounding yen and an ex-dividend trading day, may be shortlived as Nintendo’s game pipeline remains strong even without a new Zelda game. Titles already announced for this year include Splatoon 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Pokémon Scarlet as well as Violet.
What Bloomberg Intelligence Says
The delay to spring 2023 of the sequel to “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild“ may weigh on Nintendo’s fiscal 2023 software-unit sales, but this could be mitigated by the potential launch of new Mario, Bayonetta and Metroid Prime games. Nintendo expects 200 million software-unit sales for fiscal 2022 ending March vs. last fiscal year’s 231 million.
— Nathan Naidu, BI analyst
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