| the_dengle said: Development time is only one factor. The other is the size of the development team. Most of Nintendo's dev teams are around or fewer than 100 people -- relatively small these days, it seems. Even if we use your definition of AAA as sales expectation, I don't see why Zelda would count. What are the sales expectations for this game? Surely not greater than Mario Kart 8 (that one would be AAA in this case). I would think 1-3 million is the AA range, with games like Fire Emblem and Pikmin falling there. Besides, sales expectations and budget are bound together -- the greater the publisher's expectations, the greater the budget is likely to be. Nintendo doesn't "expect" most of their games to sell more than a couple million, which is why they're able to keep their budgets in check. I have to say, the OP's question doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of the definition of AAA you've provided. At this rate nobody in their right mind would expect any Wii U game released in 2016 or later to sell "AAA" numbers, no matter what it is. And while I'm sure Nintendo is still greenlighting new games for Wii U, they're probably mostly short-term projects. A standard development time starting now would mean a release in 2018. Even the Wii barely had any new releases 6 years after its launch. |
So, basically, you're just making up numbers off the top of your head? And you're telling me that Zelda Wii U is going to have half the team that Skyward Sword had? Why?
Also, what you called my definition isn't mine, it's that of Ingram Entertainment and other industry-leading distributers who send out prebook listings.
If everyone is going to simply assign their own values to what "AAA" or "AA" mean, then this thread is a waste of time.
