Why does Nintendo take that long to make games compared to HD consoles?

[mushroomboy5]

I think your timing is wrong...nintendo don't necessarily take THAT long to make games...they just may not have started working on them straight away...

for instance, I doubt that they have actually spent the last 4 years or so working on a new STARFOX game (esp since nintendo themselves have said they are uncertain if they'll ever actually make a new one, which implies they haven't started one yet!)...if they did start to make a new sf game (lets just pretend) tomorrow and it took 2 years to complete, YOU would probably say it took 6...when it actually took 2!!!!

Miyamoto only expressed interest in developing a new Pikmin game at E3 2008, which again implies it wasn't started until mid 2008 (or even much later), which means if it comes out sometime this year it will have taken around 2 years (give or take)...not the 5 or 6 you claim!

Nintendo don't take THAT long (with the exception of Zelda of course, and I'm sure that will be something worth the wait!)