| HappySqurriel said: I don't know ... I suspect that if Nintendo had released 1 or 2 big games for the Christmas season there wouldn't be half as much bitching about Nintendo abandoning "Hardcore" gamers, or speculation about Nintendo's secret reasons for holding back. Being that Nintendo hasn't been announcing most Wii games more than (about) 3 Months in advance we don't really know what they had intended on releasing this Christmas season (over a year ago) and it is entirely possible that they had a couple of big games that were delayed into 2009. |
I agree with this post, and consider the following two facts about Nintendo:
(1) They have a penchant for delaying games. As Shiggy said, "a delayed game is eventually good." They often delay games upwards of a year. Internally, that could be even more.
(2) They haven't been announcing games as early lately.
Couple those two with the fact that high end game development typically takes 18-36 months per game. Nintendo would have planned out 2007/2008 releases by early 2007. If some of those 2008 releases were delayed, Nintendo would have known it before the start of 2008.
That could explain why they delayed Mario Kart and Smash even though both games were rumored to have been complete. They needed to fill in the 2008 gap.
If games aren't going to be ready for 2008, there's nothing Nintendo could do about it. You can't just throw a high end game together in less than 12 months in a typical case.
There may be extra releases in 2009 because of delays from 2008, or there may be more games released in 2010. Look at Sony's history with delays this generation: it has been far more public because Sony has used future games to sell consoles now (it's an odd concept, but it works with fanboys). Almost all of their major games have been significantly delayed. Nintendo has most likely ran into the same thing.
