3D Land is a product of Iwata's Nintendo, which is a Nintendo that likes to port successful handheld games to their consoles to save on cost and time. Everything about modern Nintendo is about saving on costs and time. Before design, concept, gameplay and anything else, comes cost. Everything MUST be done as cheaply as possible before it's even considered. That's why the Wii was a Gamecube with a new controller and the Wii-U is a 360 with a new controller. It's why the 3DS and Wii-U doesn't have capacitive screens. It's why 3D Land exists instead of a modern Mario64 ( a game that DWARFS 3D Land in ambition). It's why none of their games have extremely deep online gameplay. It's why it took so many years for them to finally start using real music instead of midi. It's why they STILL refuse to start using full voice acting and cutscenes.

People want to believe them when they say they have a reason for excluding this or that, but it comes down to Iwata and his business sense. He is all about investors and profit margins. He will not green light big projects if there is even a moderate risk of not creating a huge bottom line. Sometimes it's paid off, other times, it hasn't. I think going forward, he's going to have to get with the times and spend some of that capital. Nintendo's console games are starting to become love letters to an era that doesn't exist anymore.

The guy bankrolled Wonderful 101

So if your hypothesis is true, Iwata is an idiot at trying to follow his own strategy.

WW was the result of the same thing. Spaceworld had the promise of this HUGE ambitions Zelda that we've always dreamed of but instead, we got a cartoon game because it was just alot cheaper to make. I would bet my entire NES collection of 70 games plus top loader and all accessories that Zelda-U won't look liket he demo we saw, won't have cutscenes,voice overs and everything else we all expect from the first HD entry.

A game like that would cost way too much for them. I hope I'm wrong though.

Wonderful 101 wasn't a risk for Nintendo. It was family friendly, had cartoonish grapphics, made by a well known game designer and used an artstyle reminiscent of an older game. And I can't imagine it cost that much to make - saying "bankrolled" makes it sound like a bigger number than it really is. It also doesn't have full voice acting. Nothing about it said that Nintendo was getting with the times - it was another love letter to a bygone era. Except this time it wasn't using the Mario or Zelda name and it sold poorly. And I can't imagine anyone not expecting it to sell poorly. Even Nintendo themselves expected it to not do very well (judging by the initial shipments for the game).

It was a weird game in an undefinable genre and supposedly cost 1.5x as much as Bayonetta, a game so unprofitable at 2 million sales (granted, many bargain bin) that Sega refused to push a sequel.

WW was the result of the same thing. Spaceworld had the promise of this HUGE ambitions Zelda that we've always dreamed of but instead, we got a cartoon game because it was just alot cheaper to make. I would bet my entire NES collection of 70 games plus top loader and all accessories that Zelda-U won't look liket he demo we saw, won't have cutscenes,voice overs and everything else we all expect from the first HD entry.

A game like that would cost way too much for them. I hope I'm wrong though.

That sounds like horrible money management to me.