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

[Jon-Erich]

Pavolink said:

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?

Two teams? Where did you get that information? Both console and handheld Zelda games are done by EAD Group No. 3. I'm sure the team is diveded whenever a handheld and console version of Zelda is in development at the same time, but if you look at the release dates, it supports the fact the team as a whole works on whatever needs to be worked on at the time. That being said, it would make sense for ALBW to start in 2011 because they were wrapping up development on Skyward Sword. In fact, here's a cited source from wikipedia regarding the development of Skyward Sword: 

 "In April 2008, game designer Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed the Zelda team to be "forming again to work on new games".[22] He later clarified at the E3 2008 trade show that the staff members had been working on a new installment in the series for the Wii.[23] The development of Skyward Sword started between the production cycles of the two The Legend of Zelda games for the Nintendo DS: it began after the completion of Phantom Hourglass and before the development of Spirit Tracks.[1] Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and his team developed Skyward Sword and Spirit Tracks simultaneously until the latter was completed and all staff was transferred to work solely on the Wii game.[1] A report of Official Nintendo Magazine pointed out that the developers were still in the planning stages in November 2008, and that a first screening at E3 2009 was considered an optimistic prediction."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Skyward_Sword#cite_note-24

Well how about that. The team who developed Skyward Sword were previously working on the DS games. Development on Skyward Sword didn't even begin until late 2008, exactly three years before the game was released. So when you consider the facts, it has to be said that Zelda games, for the most part, have the development cycles of normal AAA games and that Aonuma's management of EAD Group No. 3 is really good. We get a new Zelda game every 2-3 years. We never have to wait too long for them and Nintendo doesn't have to rely on yearly releases like Activision and Ubisoft do with their games. 

Also, wether remakes affect development schedules or not is almost completely irrelevent since the Zelda Team had absolutely nothing to do with remakes outside of Eiji Aonuma's supervision with the exception of Wind Waker which was developed by the Zelda team.