Iwata Asks Reveals New Super Mario Bros. U Took Three Years To Develop

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blackstarr said:

3 years does seem like a long time, but I'm guessing it was a smaller team.

I don't know how development at Nintendo works. Do they have an "AAA" team like Namco-Bandai does? Or AAA synonymous with Miyamoto/Aonuma or something?

There's a team dedicated to the Zelda franchise, and the Tokyo team made the Super Mario Galaxy games. Those are about as AAA as it gets in terms of Nintendo's internal development structure - excluding slightly more independent devs like Intelligent Systems, Retro Studios, and Monolith Soft.