Nintendo might do something it hasn't done for years: launch a major first-party game for the holidays. Once upon a time, the final three months of the year were Nintendo's big annual moment, the time when it showed off its newest tricks and renewed a sense of promise for the future of its platforms. Since the mid-2010s, though, by accident and then design, Nintendo has had less to show and different plans for when to show it. Summer became king, while November and December often passed entirely unnoticed by the company. Games came and went in a steady rhythm that defined the future, big moments no longer required. But with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, Nintendo is very deliberately returning to that sense of pent-up excitement and holiday release.

So when will The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake come out? As of this writing, Nintendo hasn’t said. But my money’s on late October or early December — partially because of the current state of fall’s release landscape, and partially because of how Nintendo's setting up the remake.

In the heady twilight of the Wii's success and the false promising dawn of the 3DS, Nintendo was much like every other big publisher. The year's closing months were marked for the birth of at least one major game, something to generate buzz and money over the holidays. Nintendo went into the final days of 2011 with a triple-barreled approach: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii in November, then Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land for the 3DS in December.

This was Nintendo's penultimate big holiday. 2012 was a quiet year, an ill omen for the dry, creaking software pipeline that ended up characterizing the Wii U. On the handheld side, though,........

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