Animal Crossing: New Horizons' delay was one of the more disappointing pieces of news from Nintendo's E3 2019 press conference, but the purpose of pushing back its release date has quite an understandable reasoning behind it. The publisher has commented further on why the game was delayed, saying it was to ensure employee welfare--although its stock price has seemingly taken a hit as a result.

　　Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser replied to IGN's question about industry crunch--whereby developers are often asked to work extreme hours in the lead-up to launch--by saying: "The crunch point is an interesting one. For us, one of our key tenets is that we bring smiles to people's faces, and we talk about that all the time. It's our vision. Or our mission, I should say. For us, that applies to our own employees. We need to make sure that our employees have good work-life balance.

　　You need a javascript enabled browser to watch videos.

　　Click To Unmute

　　Thompson: The Pop Culture Icon’s Strange Legacy - Loadout

　　Firearms Expert’s FAVORITE Weapons Of 2023State Of Gaming Handhelds In 2023How Lies of P Cracked the Souls GenreLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Ichiban Kasuga Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Chitose Fujinomiya Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Saeko Mukoda Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Eric Tomizawa Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Kazuma Kiryu Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Seonhee Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Koichi Adachi Character Spotlight TrailerLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Official Yu Nanba Character Spotlight Trailer

　　Share

　　LinkEmbed

　　Size:640 × 360480 × 270

　　Start at: End at: Autoplay Loop

　　Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?

　　Sign up or Sign in now!

　　Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos.

　　This video has an invalid file format.

　　00:00:00

　　HTML5

　　Auto HD High Low

　　Report a problem

　　Sorry, but you can't access this content!

Please enter your date of birth to view this video

　　By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's

　　Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

　　enter

　　Now Playing: Animal Crossing: New Horizons - 24 Minutes Of Gameplay | Nintendo Treehouse E3 2019

　　"One of those examples is, we will not bring a game to market before it's ready. We just talked about one example [New Horizons' delay]. It's really important that we have that balance in our world. It's actually something we're proud of."

　　New Horizons was initially scheduled for a 2019 launch, but it will now be released on March 20, 2020. While it's still a way off, pre-orders for the game are now open. You can read more in our Animal Crossing: New Horizons pre-order guide.

　　In the wake of the news that New Horizons won't be out until the very end of the fiscal year, Nintendo's stock price took a noticeable hit, dropping to its lowest price in a month. It's still up significantly from earlier this year, but its market value dropped by $1 billion on Wednesday before beginning to recover slightly since then.

　　The game makes a few neat changes compared to previous titles in the series, including the addition of couch co-op. At any point, you can pass a Joy-Con controller to a friend to let them take control of another character who lives in the village. Nintendo also said the game will support four players locally and up to eight players online. For more, check out these welcome Animal Crossing: New Horizons gameplay changes or our look at why New Horizons is so different to past Animal Crossing games.

More E3 news: