During the E3 Nintendo Direct presentation, the company revealed that Animal Crossing: New Horizons will not be arriving this year as anticipated, but has been delayed until 2020 for various reasons. Some fans were understandably disappointed—and others quite upset—but most fans understand the delay will ultimately be a good thing for the final product, if it means the vision can be fully completed and a better game brought to market.
Fans, however, are not investors—and those with money in Nintendo stock were not pleased. On Wednesday, Nintendo’s shares closed 3.53% lower than on Tuesday, making the fall a more than $1 billion dive of the company’s stock market value.
While the Animal Crossing: New Horizons delay isn’t the only thing to blame, it’s being seen as a major contributor. Other suggested factors are a lack of announcements around cloud-based streaming technology (which other companies did present during the conference), no new Switch model announcement, and no additional news surrounding a partnership with Microsoft.
Why the new Zelda title didn’t bolster confidence remains to be seen, as Breath of the Wild was a massive, breakout success for Nintendo on release several years ago—however, it’s also worth noting that Nintendo has a reputation for bouncing back after market crashes, so any new potential investors might not want to lose confidence just yet.
