Daily Debate: Should Nintendo Produce Its Own Zelda Costumes?
Posted on October 29 2023 by Alexis S. Anderson
With Halloween right around the corner, Zelda fans will no doubt have a beautiful bounty of expertly crafted Zelda character cosplays to marvel at. I myself have put together some not-so-expertly crafted Zelda costumes to wear for Halloween over the years. But for the busy and craft-impaired, buying a Zelda costume is a much easier option. The only problem is, while Nintendo may license the most famous Zelda characters’ likeness for third party costume companies to recreate, more obscure character costumes can be either impossible to find or really (understandably) expensive from independent sellers. So, should Nintendo make its own costumes for less generally-known, but nonetheless popular Zelda characters?
It seems Nintendo sells a Hylian Shield, Master Sword, and Hylian ears already. So the company is no stranger to selling costume pieces directly through its official site, and of course it sells other apparel as well. The problem would likely be a lack of demand for obscure Zelda costumes, such that producing them would not be worthwhile/profitable for Nintendo. If Nintendo doesn’t even directly sell Link’s tunic– if it feels it is better for the company to have third parties produce them– then producing costumes for lesser known characters is surely not in Nintendo’s best interest.
If Nintendo were to make the costumes, it would want a high degree of quality control and given the small number of potential buyers the costumes would have to be incredibly expensive to justify producing them. Then we’re right back where we started spending upwards of $200 on unique Zelda related costumes. Even if people were to save up money to get them (assuming they were high enough quality to inspire that kind of interest), those fans could do the same and support independent costume sellers instead. So, producing official Zelda costumes doesn’t seem worth it for Nintendo or the fans.
I’m crushed, really. The only benefit to the average fan I can think of in the event Nintendo sells its own costumes at a high price is that buyers might re-sell the costumes for cheaper. Best case scenario might be for Nintendo to continue to produce smaller pieces of costumes for various Zelda characters. Providing one or two parts of an obscure Zelda costume at a reasonable price would certainly facilitate making one’s own costume. For instance, I’m trying (emphasis on trying) to be Sonia from Tears of the Kingdom for Halloween and it cost me quite a bit of scratch to get a replica of her secret stone– but since such a stone could double as non-costume Zelda merchandise (like a paperweight), Nintendo could possibly mass-manufacture those for less without it really hurting their bottom line.
The same might be said for a replica of Vaati’s hat or cape, Zelda’s shawl from Skyward Sword, or Agitha’s parasol. And there are plenty of others that can’t quite pass as common merchandise but would be similarly useful costume pieces like a Groose wig, Hilda’s staff, Midna’s helmet, Komali’s pearl, the list goes on. Frankly, I don’t see this happening and I totally understand why Nintendo wouldn’t go for it, but a girl can dream.
Do you think Nintendo would ever start to sell Zelda costumes for characters other than Princess Zelda and Link? What other prop pieces for less famous characters do you think would help along DIY costumes? Let us know in the comments!
Alexis S. Anderson is a Senior Editor at Zelda Dungeon who joined the writing team in November, 2014. She has a JD from the UCLA School of Law and is pursuing a career in Entertainment and Intellectual Property Law. She grew up in the New Jersey suburbs with her parents, twin brother, and family shih-tzu.
