Ocarina of Time Remake Anchors Zelda's 40th as Switch 2 Shipments Fall 37%

Nintendo shipped 6.49 million Switch 2 consoles in the six months to Sept. 30, a 37.4% drop from a year earlier, and it is now betting on a $59.99 remake of a 1998 Nintendo 64 game to carry demand through the holidays. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake launched Nov. 5 as a Switch 2 exclusive, priced at $59.99 for the digital edition on Nintendo's U.S. store. It anchors the series' 40th anniversary campaign, which also includes a themed console released Oct. 29 at $519.99.

How big is the hardware gap?

The full-year shipment forecast of 16.5 million units remains unchanged, which leaves roughly 10 million consoles to ship between October and March. MLQ reported a 41% drop in quarterly Switch 2 sales on Nov. 5. Software is holding up better: Switch 2 game shipments rose 18.8% to 24.49 million units in April-September, and lifetime console shipments reached 26.35 million.

The financial picture is mixed but not weak. Half-year net sales fell 12.1% to 966.0 billion yen, while operating profit rose 49.1% to 216.5 billion yen. The full-year forecast already absorbs about 100 billion yen of higher component costs, including memory, plus tariffs. President Shuntaro Furukawa said no further price increase is under consideration. In short, margins are improving even as unit volumes slow.

What is Nintendo actually selling?

The remake ships without an expansion pass and without Master Quest, the remixed dungeon mode bundled with the GameCube port and the 2011 3DS version. Producer Eiji Aonuma told IGN the team wants to "leave that possibility open" for developers, but added: "I don't think that we would announce anything specific at this time."

The only confirmed add-ons are hardware:

• Two amiibo figures, Young Link and Young Zelda, slated for 2027; Game Rant reports $24.99 each, about $50 for both. They unlock retro-style masks modeled on the N64 originals.
• Tapping any older Zelda amiibo grants in-game extras.
• A 40th-anniversary wallpaper for digital buyers who purchase by Nov. 23.

The anniversary Switch 2 carries dark green Joy-Con 2 controllers and a gold Triforce on the dock. A matching Pro Controller costs $99.99 separately, or $109.99 with a display stand. The $519.99 price sits $20 above the standard console, whose U.S. price Nintendo raised by $50 to $499.99 during the July-September quarter; Canadian and Japanese prices also rose.

Why rebuild a 1998 game?

Aonuma, who has worked on every Zelda game since the original Ocarina of Time, framed the remake partly as a training exercise. In Nintendo's "Ask the Developer" series, he said many current team members "have only experienced developing the more recent titles" and asked whether they "truly understand just how significant The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was to the series as a whole." Rebuilding it, he said, "may trigger new insights that they can carry forward into future development." He and Hidemaro Fujibayashi, director of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, are the project's producers.

Speaking to GameSpot, Aonuma addressed the layoffs that have hit the games industry, particularly Western studios, which Nintendo tends to avoid. He said there is "a real benefit" to long-tenured staff who share experiences, because it makes the next step easier to decide and gives the company a base to "build from." The Zelda team changes over time, he said, but a core group carries between projects and trains new members so they do not work "by rote or without understanding the reasons" — a practice he traced back to Shigeru Miyamoto's era.

What comes next?

The remake opens a run of first-party releases: Pikmin 4 – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Dandori Academy on Nov. 12, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition on Dec. 3 and Metroid Ravenous on Jan. 28. Nintendo has not published sales figures for the remake or the anniversary console, and its next hardware count arrives with fiscal third-quarter results covering the October-December holiday period — the first hard test of whether Zelda nostalgia can close the 10-million-unit gap.