Legendary game designer and Nintendo ‘Creative Fellow’, Shigeru Miyamoto has had to make a difficult decision. Writing on Nintendo’s Facebook page, Miyamoto has confirmed that highly anticipated Wii U exclusive, Star Fox Zero has been delayed out of this year. The delay applies to all territories, with Nintendo’s home Japanese division instead reporting the delay via the company’s Japanese Twitter feed.
Miyamoto wrote that he actually made the decision to delay Star Fox Zero last week, back when he was acting CEO of Nintendo, before new president, Tatsumi Kimishima was formally appointed just yesterday. Miyamoto states that the delay simply came down to a need for extra polish, namely fine-tuning the cutscenes, and further polishing the level design. Miyamoto admitted that it would be possible from a technical standpoint to release Star Fox Zero in time for its previous November 20th date, but he just didn’t want to compromise a product that he felt very passionately about. Miyamoto nonetheless apologized profusely to Wii U owners who were hoping to play the game during this Holiday season, though assures that the delay will not be long.
Star Fox Zero now sits in Q1 2016 for the West, which means that it will still launch during Nintendo’s current fiscal year for North America, which ends on March 31st of next year. Japan will be waiting slightly longer for the game, which will release some time in Spring 2016 for the Land of the Rising Sun.
There’s currently no word from Nintendo on whether or not the game’s delay will affect the November 20th release of the Falco Amiibo figure from the Super Smash Bros. set, one of the only remaining figures from said set that has yet to release to the public worldwide. The figure’s release date was no doubt meant to tie in with the launch of Star Fox Zero, which would presumably use both the Fox and Falco Amiibo figures from the Super Smash Bros. set, with Fox’s figure having been among the very first Amiibo figures to launch last November. Fox has unfortunately become one of the less common Amiibo figures however, and is somewhat rare in the wild, only being sporadically restocked in small waves across major retailers every so often.
The delay of Star Fox Zero, which is being developed by PlatinumGames and published by Nintendo, is a considerable blow to the Wii U for the busy Holiday season, though the console still has plenty of exclusives on deck for the remainder of the year. Yoshi’s Woolly World, Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash and Devil’s Third are all launching exclusively for Wii U throughout the remainder of 2015. The recent blockbuster release of Super Mario Maker is also on track to be one of the top Holiday 2015 titles for Wii U, particularly as a bundle option for new adopters, and massively successful recent Wii U titles like Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Mario Kart 8, Splatoon, and Mario Party 10 are sure to continue to be hot Holiday items for Nintendo’s console.
Keep flying to Eggplante for all news and updates on Star Fox.