Nintendo has gone ahead and broken a commandment that the mainstream video game industry seemed to have imposed on itself for 2026: thou shalt not release a game in the same month as Grand Theft Auto 6. After some speculation that Nintendo might go later and pick a December release date, the company has opted to precede the Rockstar Games juggernaut by two weeks and landed on Nov. 5.
As it stands, Nintendo is the only major publisher willing to take a chance on a November release date (unless you count Sega/Atlus’ release of the Switch 2 version of Metaphor: ReFantazio on Nov. 12). Most of the competition has crammed itself into September and October; a few games will see the light of day in early December, including strategy sequel Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 and Nintendo’s own re-release of Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
The Zelda: Ocarina of Time release date clearly ignores GTA 6
GTA 6‘s blast radius has been agreed by some kind of industry consensus for a while, and Nintendo is showing some daring by stepping into it. There’s no question that it’s a risk. Go too soon after GTA 6, and a colossal portion of the gaming audience will be otherwise occupied; too soon before, and gamers will have earmarked their time and disposable income already.
Nintendo, however, doesn’t seem to care. The company loves to give the impression that it is blithely unconcerned with what the rest of the gaming world is up to, but I’m sure that’s not the case. So what gives it the confidence to sidle so close to what’s expected to be the biggest entertainment launch of all time — confidence that nobody else in the game industry seems to have?
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