Why do Zelda Console games take 5 years to develop.... ?

[Pavolink]

Jon-Erich said:

Pavolink said:

This.

OP: Incompetence and financial reasons are behind it.

Incompetence because, as much as I love Skyward Sword, it took them a lot to do a game without even a proper overwolrd. 4 years to do A Link Between Worlds, focused on remakes, etc... Aonuma doesn't know at this point what to do with the franchise anymore. He has to remade half of the franchise history to decide to go with a Zelda NES based game, and implementing other things from other games like Hyrule Warriors.

Financial reasons because, first, games are released on holidays, second to fit on celebrations like the 25th anniversary. It won't be a surprise if Zelda HD "fits" by the god's will with the 30th anniversary next year...

The better solutions is for Aonuma and Miyamoto to step down and let someone else with clear ideas to take control of the franchise. Someone like Koizumi. He was heavily involved in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.

Skyward Sword actually had an average development cycle, about three and a half years. A Link Between Worlds started development in 2011 and was finished by 2013. Again, another average develop cycle. In fact, let's analyze the release dates for Zelda games dating back to Twilight Princess since that release would take place 10 years before the intended release of the Wii U Zelda. And I'm only going by games that the Zelda team worked on since Aonuma's role in the remakes and spinoffs was that of an advisor/supervisor:

2006-The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

2007-The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

2007-Link's Crossbow Training (was worked on by EAD Group No. 3 aka the Zelda Team)

2009-The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

2011-The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

2013-The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD

2013-The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

2016-Zelda U

So on average, we had to wait about 2 years for a new Zelda game since 2006 and even before then. Only Zelda U seems to be breaking this tradition. Both the console and handheld Zelda games were worked on by the same team so you know they were never spending too much time with one game. With the exception of Link's Crossbow Training and Wind Waker HD, remakes and spinoffs were handled by other studios which allows EAD Group No. 3 to focus their attention on the main games. 

The worst game on this list was Link's Crossbow Training and that wasn't even bad for what it was supposed to be. Those other games were all pretty good. They all stand out from one another and don't feel like a repeat of the same experience and we seem to be getting them at a decent pace. So tell me again why Aonuma is doing such a bad job and why he needs to retire?

First off, there are 2 Zelda teams, one for handhelds and one for consoles. Thus, the line up is like this:

Handheld team:

Phantom Hourglass 2007 - previous game was Minish Cap in 2005

Spirit Tracks 2009 - 2 years

A Link to the past 2 2013 - 4 years

 

Homeconsole team

Twilight Princess 2006 - 4 years after The Wind Waker. The game was delayed a full year to release a Wii version

Skyward Sword 2011 - 5 years

Zelda HD - TBD (at least 5 years)

 

According to experts, remakes doesn't affect development of the main projects, in fact, in some cases like this one, it speed ups.

And btw, if they started ALBW development in 2011, what did the handheld team do between 2010 and 2011?