No, I haven't got any sort of inside info or rumoured dates.
This is about predicting when each of these three titles will release. When do you guys think they'll each happen? So far, it looks like they're all going to be 2010 releases - at least, for Japan.
To discuss, Nintendo needs one of these to happen before summer. Metroid: Other M seems like the ideal solution - Metroid is still fresh in people's minds following Trilogy, and nobody's really Metroid'd out since Trilogy was just a re-release. I'm predicting late May or early June. Since Nintendo loves Sunday releases, I'll place it on May 30 for the US. I have no Japanese prediction.
That leaves us with the two others. This is a much more difficult decision. Which is the more important title to Nintendo - Mario Galaxy 2 or Zelda Wii? Mario undoubtedly will sell better and make Nintendo a ton more cash (especially since it likely isn't running on a brand new engine), while Zelda Wii has been in the works for a ton more time and is undoubtedly more highly anticipated.
So it comes down to this. The earlier release will get more time to build up into the holiday season, relying more on legs than frontloaded sales leading into Christmas 2010. The later release - which needs to be at least a month, preferrably two months, later - will be a lot more about heavy holiday sales, weaning itself off of the massive sales jump going into 2011.
Since we already know Nintendo frequently releases their late-year Mario titles in November, and the beginning of November will follow precisely 3 years after the release of Mario Galaxy 1, I'm going to place SMG2 with November 5th and 14th release dates - Japan and Americas, respectfully. Yeah, that's a long wait after the game's rumoured completion (E3 '09 stated SMG2 was "nearly complete"). I expect Nintendo did three things. One, they learned from Sunshine not to release their biggest console titles early in the year, especially if they rely on "hardcore" sales. Two, they decided that NSMBW deserved a huge window, and releasing SMG2 too close to it was stupid, so they planned to wait a full year after NSMBW to the date when SMG1 would be three years old. And three, they gave themselves time to tweak the game bit-by-bit and present us with complete Wii 3D Mario perfection.
And that leaves us with Zelda Wii as the big question. This has been in the works for years - rumours go as far back as even before Twilight Princess saw store shelves. That would mean that a release after 2010 would mean a full 4+ years of this game slowly awaiting release. That's a LONG time. And more, that would also mean over 4 years between console Zelda releases. Many thought for certain that Zelda Wii was going to see its release last year in late September, especially when E3 was rumoured to have Zelda information coming... Then E3 just teased with a single image, and Zelda fans groaned. Surely that meant no 2009 release, and with no 2009 release, we weren't going to see Zelda Wii until Fall 2010. And many even tried saying it would be longer than that, but that effectively would put too much time between releases, as I said earlier.
So, I'm going to predict an early September release. I think Zelda Wii will sell through the rest of the year with a massive release explosion that built up over a long summer of drooling fans after the E3 announcement of its release date (also the demo of Miyamoto himself playing Zelda Wii at E3 - sorry, fans won't be allowed). Zelda Wii will open with tremendous sales - an opening week of 2m+ - then sell rather well through the next two months until Mario Galaxy 2 releases and ushers in the holiday season. Then Zelda Wii will follow just behind Mario Galaxy 2 through into 2011, and the two together will be the two best-selling titles of the 2010 holiday season.
And when do I precisely predict Zelda Wii's release? Actually, an imprecise Late August date for Japan, with September 5 for the West.
How about y'all?
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