Nintendo's ex-marketing leads Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang say the rumor that Nintendo sits on finished games is "totally" true.
Speaking on their podcast (spotted by Genki_JPN), Ellis and Yang are asked by guest Lucy James whether its true that Nintendo would hold onto completed games and release them when the company thought the time was right. Yang, former senior manager creator relations and original content at Nintendo of America, of explains, "That totally happened though in the past where a lot of these things, they just sock away in the Nintendo vault."
Yang, as an example says, "Like a lot of these remakes, those ports, those are just, like, done, real fast, and they'll just sock them away, and then whenever there's a gap in the calendar, they'll just release one of those ports."
She continues, "That's how they kept the Switch life cycle so long, is because they just didn't really have any lulls, because they were able to be so quick and kind of have a batch of stuff ready to go and they would just find the right time strategically to release it."
With that said, having left Nintendo in 2022, Yang admits "I don't know how they're doing these days," but that she feels Nintendo has "had a bit of a shock when it comes to development on a Switch 2, and the time it's taking," adding: "I feel like they're in a different kind of world now."
Of course, we have known this to be the case with some releases, given that Fire Emblem Engage was leaked a long-time in advance and was apparently finished for over a year before it was first revealed. Although, from Yang's comments, it sounds like this was perhaps more widespread than many knew about. Let's just hope Nintendo is still sitting on a Zelda: Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD port.
