 Animal Crossing for Nintendo Switch was originally announced at the tail end of 2018. While there wasn't any gameplay, we learned the new Animal Crossing game was arriving on Switch at some point in 2019. Of course, we now know today that 2019 was missed and the game is actually releasing on March 20th, 2020. This however was a largely positive thing, not only from the given release site of games in 2019, but how they handled the delay publicly and how they have slow dripped the hype for this game since the announcement has been brilliant. You see, Nintendo has a bad habit with some of their game delays at times. For recent examples, there was the 2014 announcement of Breath of the Wild that was supposed to release in 2015 and that ended up not arriving until 2017. And while we never had a release date, Metroid Prime 4 was announced in 2017 only to be announced that the development was completely restarted again in early 2019. These are two instances where the marketing and development of two key Nintendo properties was a little mishandled, even if unintentional. Maybe the games were announced too soon, or other considerations, like the lack of success for Wii U, wasn't being taken seriously enough. Generally, a game that is delayed is often not an example of a positive development and marketing strategy, even if the end product turns out well. It means internal targets were missed. But in the case of Animal Crossing New Horizons, it was handled with the care and respect Animal Crossing fans deserve. The last true mainline Animal Crossing game was Animal Crossing New Leaf on the Nintendo 3DS, which released way back in 2012. It's been a while and by the time of release, a full 8 years between mainline games. But it's actually been even longer if you consider when the last time it was that we had Animal Crossing on a true home console. That would be city folk on the Nintendo Wii in 2008. 12 years later, we finally get a new entry on a pseudo home console from Nintendo. This does mean Animal Crossing fans have displayed a rather impressive amount of patience, since a new Animal Crossing game does not actually come around that often. That's why how they handle the announcement and the inevitable release was critical. Fans have been waiting almost a decade for a new mainline game and over a decade for a home console version, so any sort of announcement and a delay would at first seem like a detriment to the fanbase. Let's see, when they finally did show off Animal Crossing New Horizons at E3 2019, one thing that was brilliant about the showing was that while it was announced the game was delayed, they announced that by not only giving an exact release date, it was one that was only shortly into 2020 on March 20th and they gave us gameplay to boot. This is important because it makes the delay look far more like a best timing to release the title, rather than simply delaying it because there are problems with the game development. Nintendo has had a huge slate in the second half of this year. This holiday season alone we have Luigi's Mansion 3, last month Pokemon Sword and Shield, this month Mario and Sonic, next month that's three flagship titles in three months and this is before we ignore the momentum of launching the Switch Lite and other games like Mario Maker 2 earlier this year. See, the second half of 2019 was so packed it wouldn't make sense to release a big selling game so close to other potential big sellers. Nintendo needs to worry about momentum next year too. One issue Nintendo did have this year is that there wasn't a big seller to push sales early in the year, so Smash Bros. just carried things. Nintendo avoids that mistake in 2020 by giving us an early year gem, or so we hope. This release slate not only made sense for Nintendo, it makes sense for Nintendo gamers that play more games than Animal Crossing. Sure, some are likely disappointed if this is why they bought a Switch, but I always feel like any game delay that didn't have an official release date already that includes an exact release day in that delay is usually a positive step forward. This builds confidence in the product and with such a bold declaration off of a delay, it shows that the development of the game is likely going extremely well. Too many games get indefinite delays, Metroid Prime 4 is an example, or delays into sometime next year, which could easily turn in sometime the year later or years later. Delays of game releases and development are inevitable in this industry. Every industry in the world misses their targeted marks at times, but how those misses are handled on the consumer end is important. In the case of New Horizons, Nintendo handled it perfectly. As a Zelda fan, I wish they would apply this principle across the board. Zelda games practically always get delayed and then delayed and delayed again. When are we going to hear about Animal Crossing again? Obviously, whenever the next Nintendo Direct lands is the most likely chance we will see the game, and it will dominate the first 3 months of Nintendo's promotion time in 2020. Nintendo has a clear plan, and they're already executing it, and it's pretty beautiful. 2020, here we come. Thank you so much for tuning in to this video from Nintendo Prime. I am your host, Nathaniel Rumpeljantz, if you enjoyed this video, why don't you drop a like on it, share it with your friends, tell me down in the comments below what you're most excited about for Animal Crossing New Horizons, what excites you the most, what new features are you hoping to see, what features do we know about that you are excited the most about. I gotta say, I'm pretty stoked. I haven't touched an Animal Crossing game in over 5 years unless you count a pocket camp on my phone, which I'll play briefly, so you guys let me know what you think about it. If you enjoy it, subscribe for more, and I will catch you in the next video.