Nintendo’s future is still firmly rooted in its past. That’s what we learned this week from the Japanese game maker, whose 3DS handheld led sales in the US retail games industry in February, beating out Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One consoles. What made the difference was a 15-year-old game called The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, which Nintendo rereleased alongside an upgraded version of the device that month . The title was the best-selling game and the fastest-selling Zelda portable release in history, with more than 500,000 copies sold so far, Nintendo said. That’s not a huge surprise. Nintendo is perhaps the only video game company capable of rereleasing a game older than the “Harry Potter” films to rave reviews. The secret to Nintendo’s success is that its aged franchises like Super Mario Bros. and the adventure titles of The Legend of Zelda are considered timeless classics players clamor for year after year. “Nintendo has always put out content that is lasting and is content that the consumer plays for extended periods of time,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, president and chief operating officer of Nintendo’s North American division, in an interview. That strategy may be working now, but the…