BODY: For 28 years, players have blown into their controllers and hoped. Starting November 5, they can blow into an actual ocarina instead.
Hori has opened preorders on Amazon Japan for the Electric Ocarina of Time, a Nintendo-licensed accessory for Nintendo Switch 2 priced at ¥7,980 (roughly $53). Until this week, the peripheral was available only through Hori's own online store — the company says it moved to Amazon after demand outpaced expectations. Amazon currently estimates delivery for November 6, one day after launch.
The device is built around a feature Nintendo revealed at September's Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct: the Switch 2 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time accepts voice input, letting players hum melodies into the console's microphone rather than pressing buttons. Hori's ocarina plugs into that system directly. It offers two modes — Free Play, where you cover the finger holes and play whatever you like, as on a real ocarina, and Auto Play, which triggers the game's songs on command. There's also a headphone jack, a quiet mercy for anyone practicing "Saria's Song" in a shared apartment.
The accessory arrives alongside a crowded Zelda hardware season in Japan. The 40th Anniversary Edition Switch 2 bundle, a themed Pro Controller, and a carrying case land October 29, with the remake itself following on November 5. As of this week, Ocarina of Time for Switch 2 sits at number one on Amazon Japan's Switch 2 sales ranking at ¥7,755 — which means the ocarina costs more than the game it plays.
The insider take
Hori occupies a specific niche in the Japanese hardware ecosystem: the officially licensed accessory maker that builds the strange, single-purpose thing nobody asked for and everybody wants. Tokyo gamers know the pattern from the company's fishing rods, taiko drums, and arcade sticks. What makes this one land differently is that Japan actually has an ocarina-playing culture — the instrument saw a genuine boom here after 1998, sustained by community circles and music-shop shelves that still stock them. Hori isn't inventing a gimmick so much as closing a loop. When the unit was shown in physical form at the company's Tokyo Game Show booth in September, the reaction wasn't curiosity. It was recognition.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).