Why is Zelda's 35th Anniversary Smaller Than Mario's?

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It's the topic you most wanted us to cover last week: why is Zelda's 35th anniversary so much quieter than the party Nintendo threw for Mario's 35th last year?

This was a tough one because, while there was clearly a lot of demand for us to explore this topic, nobody at Nintendo has come out and explained what's going on. We don't like relying on hearsay or speculation, but in cases like this, that's all we have to go on.

The best we can do is point out what we've noticed about the Mario and Zelda fandoms, and how Nintendo treats them differently. Mario appeals to a very wide audience, but not every Mario fan will buy every Mario product. So, for Mario's 35th anniversary, it makes sense to use the scattergun approach, trying out a bunch of different things, because the people who will buy Super Mario 3D All-Stars may not necessarily buy Mario Kart Live.

By contrast, the Zelda fandom is a lot smaller, but a lot more dedicated - and, as the franchise is aimed at a slightly older audience, Nintendo prefers to add an extra layer of polish in order to charge premium prices for Zelda products, whether that be merchandise (ie an endless cavalcade of Zelda amiibo) or games (HD remasters instead of bundled up All-Star packages).

Then, there are other factors: there's Breath of the Wild 2 next year, unless it gets delayed. Nintendo wants to time their Zelda releases this year to complement BOTW 2, and, if the next new game takes a bit longer to finish, they may want to hold back a Wind Waker or Twilight Princess Switch port to plug the gap in their schedule.

Then there are problems created by working from home in 2020. There's a possibility that more was planned, but projects had to be axed due to work delays.

Then, there's the other important possibility: maybe we haven't yet heard everything that's scheduled for Zelda's 35th anniversary. The big Mario 35 announcement didn't come until September, we might see the same thing this year with Zelda.

Meanwile, Metroid fans are sitting in the corner debating Dread and whether 2D games are worth $60. That, as in all cases of game pricing, depends on the game.

Lots of love,
BretonStripes (  / bretonstriped  ) and Kotor (  / kotorcomics  )