1. Wind Waker was able have a smoother development process since the Oracle games were outsourced. This meant that Nintendo was able to jump straight from Majora's Mask to Wind Waker. Also, Twilight Princess used the same engine as WInd Waker. This could have easily cut back on development time. Again, Skyward Sword didn't take 5 years to make. It took 2 years before they could start making it.

2. Do you know who else does that? Shigeru Miyamoto. Satoru Iwata also did it during the development of Earthbound. I'm sure you've heard of Shigeru Miyamoto's 'upending the tea table'?

http://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/Upending_the_Tea_Table

Given that Eiji Aonuma worked under him for many years, it would be no surprise if his methods are similar. Shinji Mikami used to take similar approaches with the Resident Evil series. Wether it's Iwata, Miyamoto, Mikami, or Aonuma, they cared more about making a good game than getting a game out on time. Besides, we still got plenty of Zleda games. Sure they weren't all 3D console Zelda games, but what would you rather have, one or two really good 3D Zelda games, or three or four medicore ones?

3. Actually, PS2 couldn't handle open world games. Ever play Shadows of the Colossus? Remember the framerate that game was running at? The PS2 almost couldn't handle it. Imagine playing an entire Zleda game at that same frame rate. Then, try to imagine what combat with multiple enemies would have been like. There's a reason why Shadow of the Colossus was almost devoid of life. It's true that GameCube could have handled such a game a little better, but not to the point where we could have gotten a decent Zelda game out of it. As for Wind Waker, most of that game was empty. Most of it was an ocean. It's not very hard to make a game like that using GameCube hardware.

But to create a huge open world game that's seamless and doesn't cut off at any point with multple terrain and many moving enemies and objects on the screen at once? PS2 or GameCube couldn't do anything like that. The Wii was basically an overclocked GameCube so that system couldn't do anything like that. Besides, if you look at the evolution of the Zelda series, it would seem like Zelda U is the direction the devleopers had been trying to take the series in since Ocarina of TIme. With OOT, the developers challenged thmeselves to have a huge 3D world instead of relying on a Super Mario 64-style hubworld. Wind Waker attempted to create a huge open world game by focusing on the ocean as the main setting. Twilight Princess tried to created a more expanded version of OOT's overworld. Skyward Sword attempted something similar to Wind Waker but with the sky instead of the Ocean. Now they have the hardware to do something they've been attempting to do for nearly 20 years. It's not anyone's fault. They just had to wait for the right hardware to come along.

Also, the reason I asked about playing the NES Zelda is because you didn't seem to get what he was saying.

I completely agree, especially with bolded part. That's why I have very high expectation for Zelda U, I think it have potential to be one of best Zelda games ever.

I like how you thinking and you are pretty good informed, what do you think about Zelda U for now and development of that game?

1. They could have outsourced A lInk between Worlds, only game released by the Zelda team since Skyward Sword. Game was vey similar to A Link to the Past.

2. That's one of the worst things ever. They normally scrath good ideas or cut content. Like whatever they done with the Paper Mario in Sticker Star.

3. And what about Xenoblade? Dragon Quest VIII? Okami? Yes, Zelda team is lazy.

And before Aonuma announced Zelda HD, I though going for a Zelda NES like game will be the best after the linearity of Skyward Sword. Yes, they keep getting lazy.

Generally much smaller teams, just like most Nintendo studio teams. Plus new assets for every zelda game.
The amount of money spent on GTA games is crazy, but it allows shorter development times.

These games take too long largely due to incompetence. Like Rockstar and GTA, they've been using the same engine for every game since the N64 days, just improving the visuals. The problem is they re-work the concept and unique "hook" of each game repeatedly for a year or two before getting into true production. It's a terrible waste, and in the end the games aren't really dramatically different from their predecessor despite new "art styles", most of which people don't like anyway. Skyward Sword is Wind Waker in the Sky, Twilight Princess is an attempt at OoT, and all of the games generally re-use characters, music for various scenarios, etc.

Zelda could learn a lot from GTA. The fans are passionate, and also set in their ways. The Dev team should maintain a constant artstyle and basic play mechanic, but add fun new locales, cool new weapons, an interesting plot, some great new soundtrack elements and improve the visuals with each new iteration. The defining uniqueness of any title should be focused on the plot, such as the Triforce in LoZ, the origin story and dark world sealing in ALttP or OoT's time travel. Beyond that titles should focus on just being bigger and better than before.

Pretty much. Rol also pointed something very important: Aonuma always says they want to create the best Zelda game ever and change conventions. IN the end, it's always Zelda and always fails to be the best Zelda ever. I learned my lesson, but by this thread you can see many hasn't.

For example, if Nintendo took Twilight Princess, improved the graphics engine and made a plot and setting that had Gannon controlling the world and everything covered in a never-ending winter that Link needs to thaw to restore a vibrant, green Hyrule, they could have a unique experience that was true to the classic Zelda experience, but also offered a unique feeling and stetting.

Skyward Sword originally was that. They were using a similar artstyle and the Wii Remote. But someone believe it was a good idea to delay the game, implement the Wii Motion Plus and change artstyle. With a better management we could have get the original game in 2009 and a new one with the Wii Motion Plus in 2011-2012.

Sir, are you a developer? If not, ask any web developer or game developer you know. I've made games, web apps and desktop apps before. More often than not, the user interface and user experience (or the graphics and animations, if we're talking games) take longer to create and polish than the actual functionality. In GTA, most of the environment is static (buildings, vegetation, etc). I'm not referring to vehicles, weapons or NPCs. The environment. And most of it is based on realistic places or structures, which have simple, basic templates.

In Zelda, most dungeons are filled with moving parts, rooms that connect to each other (sometimes from floor 5 to floor 1), and a general theme in both the aesthetics and the puzzles. Even before the actual creation of the assets (which aren't based on a simple and reusable template, but on totally fictional concepts meant to achieve certain purposes), the dungeons have to be planned out, sketched and so on. After the creation of the assets and testing, some things may have to be cut or changed. That's much more time consuming than  creating a virtual neighborhood containing residential buildings and stores which all look fairly similar (which is an accurate representation of what neighborhoods look like in real life anyway). The GTA team also doesn't have to program numerous moving parts, elevators, sliders, wind zones, magical switches and so on into their environments. They do, however, have to program many different vehicles and weapons, and test and tweak the handling and feel of all these. As a developer, I can tell you that that doesn't require much extra coding. Just reuse the same template, tweak the variables (speeed, weight, friction, etc) so that differrent ones have different values, then play it and see how it feels, then tweak the same variables again (without doing any extra coding) until it feels just right.

I am not saying that GTA is easier to develop. I am saying that you're wrong for saying that the scale of the work required for these two games isn't in the same league. I can't say which one requires more work without actually working on both games myself (I assume GTA simply because of the voice acting and the HD texxtures), but the work load is very comparable.

And guys, they don't use a new engine everytime. Twilight Princess was built on the same engine as Windwaker. The art style isn't dependent on the engine. It's  dependent on the artist's use of shaders, and the body proportions they decide to give their characters.

And you know this how?