Zelda: Breath of the Wild Needs to Sell 2 Million to Become Profitable

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild needs to sell 2 million units in order to become profitable, according to Nintendo.

The figure was revealed during a shareholder meeting in Japan, which was liveblogged by Twitter user NStyle and translated by Cheesemeister. During it, the Mario creator discussed what it will take to recover development costs.

Breath of the Wild is set for launch on both Wii U and Nintendo's next gaming platform, codenamed NX. The company has not shown this version of the game or discussed in any sort of detail. It is unclear whether the 2 million figure represents combined sales of both versions or how digital sales are factored in.

The last new console entry in the Legend of Zelda series was Skyward Sword for the Wii. In January 2012, two months after its launch, it was reported Skyward Sword had surpassed 3.4 million units.

During the meeting, Miyamoto also said that, over the course of Breath of the Wild's five year development cycle, 300 people have worked on the game. It currently has 100 staff members on it. Additionally, Miyamoto explained that the NX wasn't shown at E3 because Nintendo was worried about imitators.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was originally scheduled to launch in 2016, but is now set to launch on both Wii U and NX in 2017.

Although a specific release date has not been announced for the game, the NX release date has been confirmed as being in March 2017. It may be that Breath of the Wild will be available as a launch title for it.