Nintendo still has no release window for Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime 4, or Breath of the Wild 2, according to its own financial reports.
Nintendo released its end of fiscal year financial report yesterday, revealing an unsurprisingly large operating profit of 640.6 billion yen in the last financial year. What you might be more surprised to hear is that Nintendo doesn’t have a launch window in mind for its three biggest upcoming releases: Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime 4, and the Breath of the Wild sequel.
This information is buried at the bottom of the financial report that can be found on Nintendo’s website. The final page of the document lists every first or second party title that Nintendo released in the last year, along with all of its previously-announced upcoming releases.
Many of these games have fixed launch dates already, like The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword HD which is due to come out on July 16. Other titles have no fixed date, but instead have a launch window - Pokemon Legends: Arceus, for example, is aiming for early 2022. However, Bayonetta 3, Breath of the Wild 2, and Metroid Prime 4 all just say TBA.
That TBA could just mean that Nintendo hasn't publicly declared the release periods for these games. However, it could also suggest that these titles are further out than the games with fixed dates or launch windows, which would make them likely to release in late 2022 or 2023 at the earliest. If they’re that far away from release, then Nintendo would be very reluctant to give a fixed date at this time.
It would, admittedly, be surprising if all three of those games are that far out. It was recently revealed that even Microsoft was expecting all three of these games to be released in 2020, according to documents released as part of the ongoing Epic vs Apple legal proceedings. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Nintendo does have an idea of when these games are coming out, but it doesn’t want to share that information with the public.
We'll have to wait and see when Nintendo is releasing its big games, but we shouldn't have to wait long with E3 2021 just around the corner.
