Animal Crossing: New Horizons Developers Didn’t Want To “Put Out A Product That Was Rushed”

"We’re not going to put a game out before we think it’s ready to be enjoyed by fans," says Nintendo's senior director of corporate communications Charlie Scibetta.

Posted By | On 21st, Jun. 2019

animal crossing new horizons

The excessively charming and oddly addictive Animal Crossing has quickly become one of Nintendo’s most popular and successful current properties. As such, Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Switch has been a hotly anticipated title for a while now. Though the game was revealed in full at E3 2019, Nintendo also announced that it would be getting delayed from its initially announced 2019 release window to an early 2020 one.

Not long afterward, Nintendo confirmed that the delay had been made so that the development team could get the game up to the expected level of quality without having to crunch. Now, they’ve given more details on why it was done. Speaking with Tech Crunch, Nintendo’s senior director of corporate communications Charlie Scibetta got to talking about the delay, saying that the development team felt it would be a disservice to put out a rushed product just to hit the expected release date. As such, though a delay was not ideal, it had to be made to ensure the game’s quality.

“We’re not going to put a game out before we think it’s ready to be enjoyed by fans,” said Scibetta. “In the case of a franchise, like Animal Crossing, that has so many loyal fans, we’d be doing them a disservice if we put out a product that was rushed.”

“So it’s a difficult decision for a company to make to move a ship date out,” he continued. “We think moving to March 20 of next year was the right decision, because we needed to give the development team enough time to make it the game we want to make.”

“That’s been the Nintendo approach from the beginning and it’s something that we’re going to continue to do,” Scibetta added. “We’re not going to rush a game out until it’s ready because we want to keep that quality bar high.”

Delaying a game by a few months isn’t something that pleases anyone involved, but hey- if we’re getting a finished, polished product as a result, and more importantly, if the developers don’t have to overwork themselves to get the product to that level, it’s ultimately all for the better.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on March 20, 2020. Check out nearly 30 minutes of gameplay footage from the game through here.


Amazing Articles You Might Want To Check Out!

Share Your Thoughts Below  (Always follow our comments policy!)



Keep On Reading!

Ubisoft Says it Has “Started an Exploration Phase on the Rayman Brand”

Ubisoft Says it Has “Started an Exploration Phase on the Rayman Brand”

Following recent reports that a Rayman remake is in the works, Ubisoft has stated that it has started explorin...

EA Sports FC 25, Astro Bot Were the US’ Bestselling Games in September

EA Sports FC 25, Astro Bot Were the US’ Bestselling Games in September

Other new releases such as The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, and others...

PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch All Saw Sharp Year-on-Year Declines in US Sales in September

PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch All Saw Sharp Year-on-Year Declines in US Sales in September

Hardware spending in the US fell by 44 percent year-on-year to $251 million, which is the lowest it has been f...

Guilty Gear Strive Balance Update Coming October 31st

Guilty Gear Strive Balance Update Coming October 31st

All 28 characters have received adjustments, from buffs and cancels into other techniques for increased combo ...

Fallout: London Crosses 1 Million Downloads

Fallout: London Crosses 1 Million Downloads

The total conversion for Fallout 4 recently received a massive update, which restores missing dialogue and fix...

The Rogue Prince of Persia is Now Steam Deck Verified

The Rogue Prince of Persia is Now Steam Deck Verified

Evil Empire warns that Steam Deck players "may experience occasional drops in frame rate" in some sections of ...