This Friday, May 12, players will be able to obtain the last episode of ZeldaNintendo’s action-adventure video game saga, which is counting on the hype around this release to boost its sales on Switch.
This new section, titled Tears of the KingdomIt has been unleashing passions for several months now, each video taken from these new adventures of Link, the elf in a robe armed with a sword, harvests millions of views on the internet.
Advantaged by jet lag, Japanese gamers were among the first to get their hands on the game in stores on Friday, like Yutaka Hirai, 30, who lined up with several dozen people in the morning at an electronics store in Tokyo. .
Mizuho Kawakami, 32, had downloaded the game before going to bed so she could try it out before going to work. “I was so excited. I can’t wait to get started and I’m sure I’ll be playing all weekend,” she said.
In other countries, some stores had decided to open at midnight to attract the most ardent video game fans, and more than 150 people crowded in the middle of the night in front of a Parisian store.
The series focused on adventure and exploration was created in 1986 by Shigeru Miyamoto, star creator of Nintendo and father of emblematic characters such as Mario or Donkey Kong.
It has sold a total of about 125 million copies worldwide, inspiring generations of gamers but also game creators.
He cites “the puzzles to solve, the action elements, a specific universe” of the series.
In the early 2010s, Zelda experienced an identity crisis, exemplified by increasingly linear episodes, forcing Nintendo to do some introspection to reinvent the series while reintroducing the elements that gave it its soul.
The result of these reflections led to breath of the wildreleased in 2017 at the same time as the Switch console, and by far the Zelda Best seller (29 million units) to date.
Nintendo is counting on the new episode of its saga to support its activity in the 2023/2024 financial year, which began at the beginning of April, while Switch sales – already in its seventh year of commercialization – are expected to fall sharply by 16 .5% to 15 million units, according to its forecast published Tuesday.
The new Zelda it should be “by far the biggest contributor to Nintendo’s sales for this fiscal year,” anticipates Serkan Toto, an analyst at Kantan Games. For Charles-Louis Planade, an analyst at Midcap Partners, it could even become “the best ever sale” of this license.
Nintendo, which despite persistent rumors has never confirmed so far that it is working on a new console, expects a net profit of 340,000 million yen (2,300 million euros) in 2023/24, which would mean a 21% drop. in a year.
Source: BFM TV
