Reggie Fils-Aime: Zelda U is a 2016 Title, Wii U Bound, Why It’s Not at E3

We’ve been waiting patiently the last 24 hours for interviews explaining a few things about Zelda titles in production, including

Tri Force Heroes and, naturally, the long awaited Zelda U. IGN got a chance to sit down with Reggie Fils-Aime, President of Nintendo of America, to talk about Zelda U. They were able to get some clarification on earlier comments from Shigeru Miyamoto, along with further explanation on the Zelda U situation.

IGN: We spoke to Miyamoto and he told us Nintendo has some really great Zelda footage and chose not to show it at E3. Can you talk about the thinking behind that decision?

Reggie Fils-Aime: “… We just fundamentally don’t believe in showing content at E3 that is going to be a long term proposition. We like to show content that typically will launch in the upcoming Holiday and maybe extending into the first half of the following year.”

Of course, the main issue with that statement is that Zelda U was shown last year when it also didn’t fit into such a tidy window. IGN pressed on that point a bit.

IGN: I understand that guideline and why you choose to observe that, but that must be taken on a case-by-case basis. When you guys showed Zelda last year, I wouldn’t have believed that game was supposed to come out in Q1 or Q2. I would have thought that was a Q3 game.

Fils-Aime: “No, but when we showed it last year, we believed it was a 2015 game.”

If you feel like that contradicts his earlier point, it’s understandable. He just said they don’t show games at E3 anymore that don’t fit without the next 9 months or so, yet they showed Zelda U knowing it was just planned for anytime in 2015. This also caused some concern: if it was fine to show it last year with 2015 as the plan, why is not okay to show it now with 2016 on the horizon? Could Zelda U potentially not be making it into 2016?

IGN: Do you worry at all that not showing it this year sends the message to Wii U owners and the potential Wii U buyer that Zelda is not a 2016 game?

Fils-Aime: “… in separate interviews [Shigeru] Miyamoto has reinforced that it’s a 2016 game, and I also believe he’s reinforced that it’s a Wii U game because I know that there is that thinking floating around.”

Indeed. The problem here, at least as far as I can tell, is that fans have to catch these interviews for this information. A few gameplay clips and a very public explanation would have certainly cleared this up better, no?

IGN: Yes, that was the reason we asked about that.

Fils-Aime: “Our mentality is more near-term when we think about E3. And, yes, we take it on a case-by-case basis. There’s also a recognition that we didn’t want to frustrate the consumer. We could have scored a lot of points and showed some little tidbit of Zelda Wii U, but in our collective opinion the belief was, in the end, that would cause more frustration than benefit.”

IGN: Is that based on knowledge gained from years of having to delay Zelda?

Fils-Aime: “It’s based on a collective belief — and when I talk collective, I’m talking about [Satoru] Iwata, Mr. Miyamoto, myself, Tatsuya Eguchi, [Shinya] Takahashi. The collective braintrust within Nintendo. It was our collective belief that it would have a negative effect of showing a game that we knew wasn’t going to be a next-six-to-eight-month-type of game.”

So there you have it. Are you confused a bit? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. At the end of the day, Zelda U wasn’t shown because it’s not a early 2016 title and they worried showing it this year would have a negative impact due to a longer wait. This reasoning is understandable normally, but not for Zelda. Not for Nintendo, really. We’ve had Xenoblade Chronicles: X at 3 straight E3s. We’ve had Twilight Princess at 3 straight E3s. Smash Bros. was announced in 2011 and didn’t arrive until 2014. The reality is, while this may be a case by case situation, Zelda U had already been shown last year, so not showing it again this year probably makes fans more worried than they would be if you had shown it.

Zelda fans have been through delays before. We can deal, but we know so little about the game and your presser lacked some punch from the Wii U side of things, so I think most can agree that even if it is a holiday 2016 title, a Zelda U trailer and a bit of information alone would have helped ease a lot of the tension. Iwata even allegedly apologized on twitter for Nintendo’s performance at E3 (although Reggie Fils-Aime has reportedly denied the tweet was an apology, stating twitter user cheesemeister’s translation was misleading).

That being said, there is hope we see Zelda U at a future Nintendo Direct later this year. What do you think of Reggie’s explanation?

Source: IGN