I’ve always been interested in video games.
This statement would sound more convincing if, in 2026, I weren’t spending most of my gaming time on a Nintendo DS Lite.
But here we are.
For the last few years, instead of keeping up with whatever incredible new games people are playing, I’ve somehow gone backward. Right now, I’m busy grinding my way through a growing pile of Nintendo DS games.
So when people talk about the newest games, I’m usually more spectator than player.
I watch trailers.
I read people talking about them.
I think, Wow, that looks amazing.
Then I turn on my DS Lite and continue playing something from many years ago.
This arrangement has been working surprisingly well.
But recently, something about the modern gaming world caught my attention.
Not graphics.
Not gameplay.
Not even a particular game.
It was Nintendo.
More specifically, Nintendo doing something that, from where I’m sitting, looks a little insane.
Nintendo apparently looked at GTA VI and said, “Yeah, that seems fine”
For the last few years, GTA VI has been one of those games that seems capable of generating attention simply by existing.
People wait for trailers.
They wait for leaks.
They wait for basically anything related to the game.
Its release has been delayed more than once, and people are still waiting.
Then Nintendo comes along with a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
The Ocarina of Time remake is scheduled for November 5, 2026.
GTA VI follows on November 19, 2026.
That is two weeks later.
I don’t know what happened inside Nintendo when they decided this.
Maybe there was a complicated strategy meeting.
Maybe someone had a giant spreadsheet.
Maybe someone stared thoughtfully out of a window for 20 minutes.
Or maybe someone just said:
“November looks good.”
Whatever happened, I find the decision fascinating.
Because if something enormous is standing directly in front of us, the obvious response is usually not to walk toward it.
It’s to get out of the way.
READ ALSO: Phoenix Wright Taught Me That Lying Is a Lot of Work
Avoiding the giant thing usually feels very reasonable
This isn’t really about video games.
We do this all the time.
We see someone who is already bigger.
More famous.
Better funded.
More experienced.
Getting far more attention.
And suddenly waiting feels like wisdom.
Not now.
Maybe later.
Let’s wait until the situation is better.
This sounds completely rational.
The problem is that sometimes the safe moment never arrives.
There will always be someone bigger.
There will always be someone whose work is better.
There will always be someone who started earlier, has more resources, has a bigger audience, or appears to know what they’re doing while we’re still clicking around trying to figure things out.
If the requirement for starting is that all intimidating competition must first disappear, we may be waiting for quite a while.
Possibly forever.
Which is why I find Nintendo’s decision interesting.
Whatever happens when November arrives, they’re still going forward.
And the even stranger part is that Nintendo isn’t confronting one of the biggest new games with something completely new.
They’re bringing back an old game.
Ocarina of Time.
A game I played on the Nintendo 64.
Or, more accurately, a game I started playing on the Nintendo 64.
Like many games throughout my life, I never finished it because another game eventually appeared and distracted me.
I have accumulated a surprisingly large amount of unfinished digital business.
You don’t have to become GTA VI
Here’s the part that made the whole thing interesting to me:
I’m actually more interested in the Ocarina of Time remake than GTA VI.
That doesn’t mean I dislike GTA.
I spent a huge amount of time playing San Andreas and Vice City. Both games belong to that particular era of my life when playing video games consumed a much larger percentage of my available time.
But Ocarina of Time left its own impression on me.
I liked the story.
I liked the mechanics.
I liked the characters.
And when I saw the remake teaser, all that old curiosity immediately returned.
Which made me realize something.
Facing something much bigger doesn’t necessarily mean you have to become bigger too.
Sometimes you just need to offer something different.
GTA VI has its appeal.
Ocarina of Time has its appeal.
They don’t need to be appealing in exactly the same way.
I’m apparently a tiny demonstration of this.
While GTA VI is surrounded by enormous amounts of attention, the game making me think, I really want to play that, is a remake of an old Nintendo 64 game I failed to finish years ago.
Of course, there’s another problem.
I probably won’t play either of them at launch.
I’m still happy with my Nintendo DS Lite.
So I have now spent a considerable amount of mental energy thinking about the strategic positioning of two major game releases while personally playing games that are many years old.
Very useful work.
We lose a surprising number of things before they even start
To me, the most interesting question here isn’t which game will sell more.
I also have no idea what the result of that head-to-head will look like.
What interests me is the decision to move forward when something in front of you looks almost impossible to compete with.
Because in everyday life, I think we often do the opposite.
We don’t start the business because large companies already exist.
We don’t make something because someone else has already made something better.
We don’t show our work because someone else’s work gets far more attention.
We don’t try because we’ve already imagined ourselves losing.
And this is a particularly efficient way to lose.
You don’t even need an opponent.
You can just defeat yourself in advance.
The weird assumption underneath all of this is that our goal must be to beat the bigger person.
But who said that was the goal?
Nintendo may not need Ocarina of Time to beat GTA VI.
They may only need people to remain interested in Ocarina of Time.
And at least in my case, that part has already worked.
If I eventually have the money and opportunity to play both games, I’ll probably try Ocarina of Time first.
Before that happens, I might replay the Nintendo 64 version through an emulator.
Partly for nostalgia.
Mostly because apparently I still owe a video game from decades ago an ending.
Moving forward doesn’t mean believing you’ll win
I think this is the part we sometimes misunderstand.
Moving forward doesn’t require absolute confidence.
You don’t need to believe you’re better.
You don’t even need to believe you’ll win.
Sometimes moving forward simply means accepting that something much bigger exists and doing your thing anyway.
Someone will have a bigger audience.
Someone will have more money.
Someone will be more experienced.
Someone will release something impressive two weeks after you do.
Fine.
Maybe your job isn’t to destroy them.
Maybe your job is just to make something worth noticing.
That’s the simple perspective I got from Nintendo’s decision.
Sometimes we need to move forward even when we know there’s something much bigger standing in front of us.
Not because we’re certain we’ll win.
Not because we think we’re better.
But because if we keep waiting for every intimidating competitor to disappear, we may never start anything.
Going forward at least gives us a possibility.
Backing down before trying gives us something much more certain:
We’ll never find out what could have happened.
Leave a Reply