For ages, eager gamers in the US could always count on Fridays as their day of joy or feigned illness, eagerly awaiting the release of a new Nintendo game. Whether it was the epic adventures of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or the quirky fun of Everybody 1-2 Switch, Nintendo consistently dropped their game releases on Fridays.
But hold onto your controllers because things have taken a turn! It appears Nintendo has shaken up its release strategy, and we’re here to uncover the reasons behind this unexpected change.
Nintendo Will Not Release Games On Friday Anymore
Nintendo has sped up the process, at least for its next set of games, since the Switch is about to enter what will likely be its last full year as a current-generation system.
Nintendo’s most recent games, like Another Code: Recollection and Mario vs. Donkey Kong, and its next game, Princess Peach Showtime, were all set to come out on Fridays. However, as Knoebel first noticed, Nintendo-published games are now coming out on Thursdays, starting with Mario Day.
Thursday is the day that both Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (May 23) and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD are set to come out. This is similar to Endless Ocean Luminous, which was given a release date of Thursday, May 2 during February’s Nintendo Direct.
At the time, that date seemed like it might have been an exception for something that wasn’t a big Nintendo game. Kirby’s Dream Buffet and Pikmin 1+2 were two games that didn’t come out on Fridays, but they did come out on Wednesdays, with Pikmin 1+2 being a surprise “out today” release.
Three of Nintendo’s games coming out in Q2 all on Thursdays, though, could mean that the company is changing things, at least when it comes to the day of the week it usually prefers.
Nintendo might decide to go back to Fridays in the future if this time period turns out to be an anomaly. We’ve asked the company to explain why it made the change for these planned games. Nintendo used to release games on Sundays instead of Tuesdays, which is when most games came out in the US. But over the last ten years, more and more companies have moved their launches to later in the week.
TIL the reason Nintendo releases games on Friday rather than the industry-standard Tuesday
byu/junkdumpster innintendo
Before we know for sure if this shift to Thursdays is true or false, we might not get another Nintendo release date for a while. Its 2024 release schedule is surprisingly light at this point. Aside from the three games that were recently announced, we know that Metroid Prime 4 is coming, but Nintendo is still listing its release date as “TBA.”On the other hand, Pokemon Legends Z-A won’t come out until 2025.
We still don’t know when Nintendo Switch 2 will come out, but it’s said to be in early 2025. But if Nintendo changes the days when games come out to Thursdays for the last few days of the Switch’s life, it makes sense that its next system would do the same.
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