Although they say the launch Wii U stuff. Its pretty likely the 3DS rush before also slowed down development of Wii U games as those extra 3DS resources had to come from somewhere. Its just a knock on effect.

As for pikmin not needing HD and 3DS games not needing 3D... If they expect people to pony up full retail price they do.

Nintendo really need to staff up if they're going to sustain the Wii U. Question is can they do that without standards slipping? y

they have been saying things like that since the Wii generation.

game development does not always end up the way people plan as things come up all the time like new ideas or problems that need to be solved

This could be why they combined their handheld and console development teams earlier this year.

You plan for that as a business though. You play 'what if' and if there's a risk your brand new console might not have any games for a year, you delay the console, reduce the game scope, or intervene sooner. If Iwata didn't realise the risk existed he's incompetent.

Imagine if EA accidentally didn't have any games for a year. You think shareholders would be sympathetic that sometimes "things come up"?

People had been calling this for a while when it seemed that Pikmin's "launch" release date was drawing closer and closer and we hadn't heard head nor tail about it.

I wonder what knock-on effect the understaffing is going to have - where they pulled those staff from. I'd imagine they'll make sure this holiday has Mario Kart & probably 3D Mario to go with it, but I wonder if other projects will fall by the wayside to get the more important projects out of the door.

As I've said before, Nintendo are realising what 3rd parties/Sony/MS realised 7 years ago what it means to develop for HD consoles. It requires a lot of manpower and investment to get games out. Nintendo obviously have just started developing for a HD console.

Mario "insert sport that hasn't had a Mario title here" doesn't count.

On a bright note, Iwata has hinted in the past that the next console Zelda after Skyward Sword would take no more than three years to make.  Ideally, we're looking at holiday 2014.  Not too shabby if it turns out that way.

Oh, so they didn't delay Pikmin 3 to make it better. =/

3DS hasn't been in "emergency mode" since 2011. It's been JUST fine for quite a while, and their development priority should have been Wii U, which they were launching, NOT 3DS, which has been and continues to get a recent glut of games. Luigi's Mansion 2 and Paper Mario: Sticker Star specifically both could have and should have been Wii U titles. Those two alone would have helped fill the gap, and both games would have been better on Wii U. And Monster Games being wasted on a pointless 3DS port of DKCR when they should be working on something for Wii U, preferably what they're good at, a RACING game along the lines of, I don't know....Wave Race?