Recently, Nintendo sampled the limited-release business model with several games, releasing them in late 2020 and putting both Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & The Blade of Light safely back in the Nintendo vault on March 31. However, a third game that was supposed to be de-listed is still available.Jump Rope Challenge, created by a handful of Nintendo developers working from home during the Covid lockdown, was originally slated to be de-listed three months after its June release. Today, it's still available on the Nintendo eShop and will be until further notice, according to Nintendo.
Why this enjoyable little fitness game is still available is interesting. It's a game the developers made to help promote exercise during the lockdown, and as such, it is meant as a daily activity for a couple of minutes per day. It's been praised for feeling authentic while using the Joy-Cons as jump rope handles, so you have no actual rope to get caught on furniture or overhead fans. To top it off, it's free to play; anyone can download it off the eShop and get to jumping -- or crouching or waving your arms if you don't wish to jump or disturb the neighbors as per the game's store page details.
When you consider the game's free-to-play status, it makes little sense to have a limited release, to begin with. The general concept behind a limited release is to generate interest and demand to generate revenue, so not selling a game that wouldn't be making any money anyway is questionable. Plus, Jump Rope Challenge is a new game, not a rerelease of an older game. While not an approved move by the fanbase, it makes sense to have the Super Mario and Fire Emblem games have a limited release because the games involved already had an extended run.
At the same time, allowing one game that was slated for de-listing to persist now makes it questionable why they would bother with de-listing the others. Not everyone in the world has a Nintendo Switch, so now anyone who buys one after March that wanted to play those games can't. Yes, the Super Mario and Fire Emblem games sold well during their limited run, but they also had the power of branding behind them, as well as nostalgia; people who remember playing these games wanted to play them in hi-def on a system compatible with modern technology.
Jump Rope Challenge has seen impressive use, but how many people downloaded it because they were told it wouldn't be available after a certain date? Reversing the decision to de-list this game now brings into question if the game became so popular on its own merits or from artificially-induced scarcity that now no longer exists. The limited-release model was not a popular decision with Nintendo's fans, and while them reversing that decision on this game is probably not indicative of them changing their minds on the other de-listed games, it does give hope that they'll think twice about it in the future.