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

[Salnax]

Cheebee said:

Salnax said:
...

If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that Team 4 is responsible for NSMB2, NSMBU, and Pikmin 3, three games released within a year. The most likely scenario is that the team behind the original DS and Wii NSMB games was immediately put to work on NSMBU. Of course, that doesn't leave many people; on average, each team has a bit under a hundred people, and this is divided into three again for NSMBU. Even if you assume they received extra resources, I wouldn't be surprised if the core team only had 40 or so people.

So there you have it. NSMBU was likely made by a team of about 40 full-timers, plus whoever was available at any given moment.

I don't think this is entirely right, 'cos Nintendo themselves have stated (in some Iwata interview, I believe) that NSMB2 and NSMBU were both developed by different teams.

Also, around Zelda SS's release last year, they were talking about how big the team was that worked on the game, and it was humongous (by Nintendo standards). I also remember reading a while ago that the DS and console Zeldas were being made by different teams. I'm thinking a lot of people are being swapped around all the time, and a lot of teams get to work on different titles/franchises than what they maybe 'mostly' work on.

I'm pretty sure he just meant something like different teams within the same development groups. And yes, there is a lot of mobility within EAD.