Everything isn't always so neat and tidy. If a game takes two years to make and development started in Q1 2013, perfect. If that same game started development in Q3 2013, is Nintendo meant to cut dev time short by six months and rush the game to release, or are they meant to delay it by six months?

Clearly the answer is simple for some companies who are not Nintendo. A Q1 game must be released in Q1 no matter what state it is in.

And like I say, I get that ambitious titles take time, but games like Mario Maker and Mario Party 10 are not ambitious titles.

They can, of course, but they won't choose to do so. They'll want the illusion of having many new games out for the system in the holidays. Why do you think they squeezed their releases into the Fall window this year?

Jan - Nada (Nintendo doesn't like to release games in January)
Feb - Kirby Rainbow Curse
Mar - Fatal Frame V
Apr - Mario Party 10
May - Yarn Yoshi
June - Mario Maker
July - Splatoon
August - Xenoblade X
September - Amiibo Universe*
October - Star Fox U
November - Legend of Zelda U
December - Devil's Third

eShop releases - Mario Vs. DK, Super NES Remix Vol. 1
*Amiibo Hub title

This does not answer my question. Two years is not a long development time. But, since you are struggling with this, let's cut it down to one year.

If Mario Maker is estimated to have a development time of one year and it begins development in May 2014, should it be rushed to completion in only 10 months or should EAD 4 be given 18 months to work on it, so that it can release in Q1 either way?

What is wrong with simply releasing the game when it is finished, in May 2015?

Mario Maker should not take a year to make in the first place.

You have very strange ideas about video game development.

If Mario Maker is estimated to take three days to develop, and development begins on March 30...?

Is it so out of the question that a simple level-builder using pre-existing assets with low production values should not take a year to make?

There are other factors to consider, such as the size of the development team. How many people are working on Mario Maker? Ten? Thirty? A hundred?

This is the third time you have dodged my question. You cannot determine on what date a game will finish development unless you consider what date it began development. You are saying that the game should release in Q1 no matter when it began development, but that's not how things work.

You are also essentially claiming to have a better understanding of game development than Nintendo, who has been in the business for 40 years. And I have to be perfectly honest with you, few things irk me more than someone who thinks they can do other peoples' jobs better than them. It's a big pet peeve of mine. You know the sort of people who watch baseball and say, "This pitcher sucks, I can throw better than that for 5 million dollars."

The industry is run by people who have no understanding of game development and that is why we have debacles like Assassin's Creed Unity and Halo MCC. Because the people in charge don't know or care what goes into making a game, all they know is that "this game should be finished by November" and that's when it'll be released.

Thankfully Iwata is not one of those people, and was in fact a developer himself, so he doesn't pull that kind of shit with his company.

It was shown at E3 this year, so it's not like it started production just recently. And honestly, it's not much of an achievement to have a better grasp of development than a company that didn't expand to accomodate HD development during the boom years of the Wii and DS, despite having seen how hard it hit others. They know how to make great games, but not how to be efficient.