Not every delay is a disappointment. In the release-driven world of video games, players naturally get bummed out when news breaks that a highly anticipated game (looking at you GTA VI) gets pushed a few months. But as Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto said, “a delayed game is eventually good, a rushed game is forever bad.” And while the jury is out on whether or not he actually said this, there’s no denying that a delayed game is among his very best.
When Nintendo launched the Super Famicom on November 21, 1990, it was betting big on a stalled product. The console was set to release in July 1989 but a number of factors, like manufacturing capacity and third-party support, led to a delay. This was good for Miyamoto, whose team was reeling from a lackluster preview of the highly anticipated Super Mario Bros. 4, which was slated as a launch title for the new machine. That extra bit of time allowed them to take something critics panned as yet another NES game and turn it into a genre-defining sensation still remembered as one of the greatest games of all-time: Super Mario World.
