Long before the Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake leaks, ex-Nintendo mark…

Nintendo is famously protective over its IP, but even some of its most closely held secrets, like the recently revealed Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, have been leaked ahead of their official announcements. That's despite the fact that, according to two of the company's former marketing leads, you were almost sure to lose your job if you were found to have mishandled confidential information.

Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang, the ex-Nintendo marketing heads behind the popular Kit & Krysta podcast, speak at length about what it's like being responsible with Nintendo's secrets in a new episode of the show. Apparently, it's pretty stressful. Unsurprisingly, information about unannounced projects was handed out on a strictly need-to-know basis, and if you let it slip to anyone who wasn't approved to know, your career at Nintendo was at risk. sportbet.rodeo

"There were some very clear lines for the people who were traveling with product," says Ellis. "It was like, yeah, lose the product, you lose your job. ... if you're responsible for the information getting out there in a reckless way you're probably gone."

Yang adds that being privy to "pieces of information was the most valuable commodity" working at Nintendo, because it meant the company trusted you with its secrets. But with great power, of course, comes great responsibility, and both Ellis and Yang admit they were "scared straight" of accidentally leaking something.

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According to Yang, it was "hard to keep a secret because sometimes you struggle with like, 'ah I wish I could just tell that one other person because that would make my job a little easier, but I can't so I gotta be real cagey about the way I communicate with this person."

Regardless, Yang reiterates, "If the information got out and it was pinned to you as the reckless person that accidentally did that, it was very clear that that was going to be the end of your career at Nintendo."

Ellis and Yang previously said Nintendo's long-awaited reveal of the Ocarina of Time remake fell flat because of reputable rumors from noteworthy industry leaker Nate the Hate. You can argue that it also fell short of expectations because hardly anything was shown beyond a sleeping HD Link, but Ellis and Yang reckoned Nintendo was "looking to kill" following the leaks.

After 10 years, unofficial Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake ends development following official Switch 2 remake reveal: "I think I have made history"

While it seems likely that the next-generation of video game consoles will eschew physical discs entirely judging by PlayStation's recent announcement about physical media, other industries are watching the pendulum swing the other way. A new report suggests that physical music CDs are surging in popularity, thanks in part to a new generation of fans.

"In a much-discussed physical-media pivot, CD sales surged 16% to 16.3 million units in the first half of 2026, vastly outpacing vinyl's modest 2.4% growth," according to a new report from Luminate. "Driven by collection building, price accessibility, massive albums such as BTS’ ARIRANG and a strong K-pop release schedule, this revival belies an unexpected development: Approximately half of Gen Z and Millennial CD buyers do not actually own a CD player."

These stats specifically reflect the US market, so take them as you will for the broader industry, but it does all suggest people are once again seeing the value in physical media – particularly as we all grow increasingly understanding of the limitations of digital ownership.

The surge in CD sales is driven by some major K-pop releases, but with that genre stripped out the growth would still be a notable 6.7%. Luminate suggests that these stats indicate "that the CD has been recontextualized from a functional audio format into an affordable collectible. This behavior underscores that for younger generations, the act of buying physical music is as much about aesthetic ownership and direct financial support for the artist as it is listening to the music on the product itself."

Admittedly, the music market and the game industry are very different. While buying a CD is a way of more directly supporting your favorite artist than simply streaming their music, most digital game sales generate just as much revenue as their physical counterparts – and that revenue isn't being cut down with retail overhead.

But the other benefits of physical media, like its collectable nature, the connection of holding an actual object, and the fact that it can't be taken away from you on a publisher's whim, all hold true across both industries. The vast majority of modern game sales are digital, but the physical games market actually had some minor growth recently. Whether that growth would be enough to turn the tide back towards physical media is a question it'd probably take years to answer, but Sony certainly isn't waiting around to find out.

Sony killing physical PlayStation games is "the latest attack on our diminishing rights," leading digital rights group says: "The end goal is to turn the customer into a renter."