Xbox expected Nintendo's 2020 lineup to include more heavy-hitters, according to documents submitted during the Apple vs. Epic court trial.
As IGN spotted, the court trial hashing out the dispute between Epic Games and Apple has now produced a document detailing Microsoft's expectations from its competitors for the end of last year. The document, which is from August of 2020, generously estimates that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime 4, and Shin Megami Tensei 5 could have launched before 2021.
Of course, we still don't have a release date for Breath of the Wild 2, and the most optimistic sign is a retailer leak pegging it for Q2 2021. For what it's worth, one rumor from earlier this year says there's an "85-90% chance that it releases around the holidays 2021."
As for Metroid Prime 4, we haven't heard much (read: anything) since development was delayed and rebooted back in January 2019. Roughly the same can be said for Bayonetta 3, though at least we have semi-recent assurances from Platinum Games that it's still in development. Shin Megami Tensei 5, meanwhile, is slated to release sometime in 2021.
This isn't the first seemingly extraneous detail leaked the Apple vs. Epic trial, as we also recently learned that Xbox's internal review team found a lot to love in the PlayStation exclusive The Last of Us 2.
