The Japanese video game giant Nintendo launches this May 12 the last episode of Zeldaits saga created almost 40 years ago, betting on the enthusiasm it arouses to support sales of its aging Switch console.
An elf in a green robe armed with a sword, a princess to save: while this new installment, titled Tears of the KingdomIt already unleashes passions with millions of views for each video excerpt published on the internet, how to explain the success of the series invented by Shigeru Miyamoto, star creator of Nintendo and the character of Mario?
The first episode of The legend of ZeldaReleased in 1986, it shocked at the time by leaving the player with almost no prompts in the middle of a vast country dotted with forests, lakes, caves, and mountains, inspired by childhood explorations of the Japanese countryside by Miyamoto, who is also said to be influenced by for the adventures of Indiana Jones.
Released just a few months later Super Mario Bros.is the opposite of the famous platform game in which the mustachioed plumber simply runs from left to right: this title “encouraged the player to explore, discover and map his universe and face its challenges”, explains Mark Brown, who analyzes on his YouTube Channel design games.
The hit of the game -whose name for its princess is taken from the American novelist Zelda Fitzgerald: It’s immediate and its universe will delight generations of players, but also game creators.
The series, with some twenty main episodes distributed across all of Nintendo’s successive consoles, has so far sold 125 million copies worldwide.
In the early 2010s, Zelda however, he experiences an identity crisis, illustrated by increasingly linear episodes. By seeking to conquer a wider audience, she loses his identity and sales suffer.
The result of these reflections leads to breath of the wild, an open world game, a breath of fresh air in the series that revives the freedom of the beginnings. Released in 2017 at the same time as the Switch console, it is by far the Zelda best seller (29 million units).
Nintendo, until now silent about a possible new console despite persistent rumors, has the new episode of the saga to endorse its results and boost sales of its Switch.
Zelda is “a great brand and breath of the wild has been so successful” that the new work “will not only boost its sales of games but also of consoles,” estimates Serkan Toto of the firm Kantan Games in Tokyo. For Charles-Louis Planade, an analyst at Midcap Partners, it could even become ” Best Selling History” of this license.
“It is a game that can approach a billion dollars in revenue, it is very significant for a company that bills just over 10 billion a year,” he told AFP.
Source: BFM TV
