A late night e-mail from Perrin Kaplan, VP of Marketing and
Corporate Affairs at Nintendo of America, officially states that Zelda: Twilight Princess will be delayed until
sometime after March 31, 2006, well beyond the prior official release date/window of "Holiday 2005." Ostensibly, this
extra time will be used for "new levels, more depth and even higher quality," and will coincide with a "new global
launch in 2006" to follow the current fiscal year (which ends on March 31st of 2006). What this translates to is that
TP won't be out anywhere until sometime after March next year.
As a significant number of GameCube owners are (or were) looking forward to the release of the final Zelda of this console generation, it's understandable when news sites and retailers begin to eagerly speculate concerning Twilight Princess's eventual release date. Amazon even threw up November 14th of this year as a possible date, though the online giant would have no problem disavowing it as a placeholder if newer information were to arrive. Developers, on the other hand, are held up to intense scrutiny whenever anticipated titles fall behind or get pushed back. The new Zelda was expected to undoubtedly be the crown jewel of Nintendo's 2005 holiday lineup, the star of its current fiscal year, and a nice lead up to the launch of the Revolution. Now it looks like there's going to be a lot of explaining to do this year. Feel sorry for Reggie yet? (No?) You will.
