Echoes of Wisdom Breaks 2024’s Nintendo-Amazon Freeze Out, So What Happened?

For much of 2024, a strange trend has dominated Amazon’s listings: Nintendo first-party games have been conspicuously absent from the retailer, both physically and digitally, for preorders and after release. Rather than being sold and shipped by Amazon, major Switch titles have been limited to third-party sellers only. This extended absence has also included Nintendo’s digital offerings — no Nintendo Switch Online memberships, gift cards, or digital game codes have appeared on Amazon’s storefront since early this year.

But, that seemingly ends with The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. This latest Zelda title has become the first Nintendo first-party game of 2024 to be sold and shipped directly by Amazon, marking a significant change in Amazon’s recent Nintendo offerings. Although it comes over a month after The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom’s release, the listing signals positive signs after months of silence from both Amazon and Nintendo regarding these absences.

As reported by GameRant, and discussed on the Nintendo Switch subreddit, some Nintendo preorders like Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door earlier in the year were also inexplicably canceled, leaving fans wondering about the retailer’s allegedly strained relationship with Nintendo.

This freeze has been specific to Amazon, as Nintendo games like Mario & Luigi: Brothership and digital items remain available at other major retailers such as Best Buy, GameStop, and Target. Up until now, Amazon has been a veritable ghost town for Nintendo products, lacking even the digital storefront presence that many gamers expect.

There’s also still no indication from either Nintendo or Amazon as to why this freeze-out occurred, and at the time of this article’s publication it hadn’t been fully reversed. Currently, only Echoes of Wisdom is available directly from Amazon, with no sign of digital items like Switch Online or gift cards returning for now.

For Switch fans eager to buy Nintendo titles from Amazon’s official stock, the reappearance of first-party games hints at a potential shift just as the holiday shopping season ramps up — especially with a Nintendo Switch successor announcement on the horizon.

With Black Friday around the corner, there’s also hope that this change could signal a return to Amazon deals on popular Switch games by month’s end. By no means, however, is Amazon currently the cheapest place to pick up Echoes of Wisdom right now going into the sale season. Woot, an Amazon-owned retailer (but treated as a separate business unit), has had the game consistently on sale for over a month. It’s currently listed for just $49.99 ($10 off the MSRP).