If only they could see it at Nintendo.  The whole Motion+ thing was a debacle really.  It should have been Wii 2.0 in HD, a whole new system with an improved Wii Remote, more power, HD visuals and a new Zelda.  The new Wii could have have fed off the original while it was still cool and before the casual crowd embraced XBox 360 in North America and PS3 elsewhere.  But that's a whole other and larger issue...

Well, WWHD slowly worked its way up to that total while Wii U went up to 6 million that holiday and then both crawled up to their current totals this past year. But, I definitely agree that 1.5 is respectable, even for Wii U's current install base of 9-10 million. And I have no doubt the new Zelda will move systems and sell 3 million or more, but I still do believe that Nintendo might go with the "better business decision" in terms of trying to maximize profit with a game they've invested so much into. 

Animated features take four to five years as well.

If you're writing, doing look development, gameplay testing and all these things, it adds up. Particularly if you want to impress every time.

GTA games take a long time too.

Skyward Sword isn't perfect certainly (what game is!?), but again its very good game, for me SS is better Zelda than TP.

I think that Motion Controls affect on long development of SS.

You sound like evry Zelda game is devolped long like SS and thats not true. Zelda U is completely different story, first HD Zelda, most open and biggest world in any Zelda game, certainly they can't finish game like that in only 2-3 years, especially with other projects, WW HD, A Link Between Worlds...   And like I wrote, every new Zelda is becoming bigger and more complex and need more time to be developed, you can't expect new Zelda game to be smaller and to be developed in less time.

Me: Recent Zeldas have been of poorer quality but taking longer to make.

You: Starfighter is saying every Zelda is taking long like SS. 

Am I missing something?  How do you come up with that conclusion. 

I'm saying up to SS, Zelda games were made in 3 years and were at worst masterpieces and at best the greatest game made to date. SS bucked the trend, took twice as long and was one of the poorest received titles (still decent).  Now Zelda U is once again taking at least 5 years to release.  Like SS and WW, it seems like Aonouma is having a change of heart mid-production and majorly reworking the title. This is showing incompetence in leadership. If nothing else, with better foresight or decision making he could have produced twice as many titles or titles which are twice as good.

I would be more accepting of a 5 year development if the results were groundbreaking or exceptional in execution.  But we haven't seen that. We have seen the Zelda team toil for a year or two, rework the game, then release a product that is of lesser quality, innovation, impact and reception than its predecessors.

GTA V took the longest Dev time in the series yet, but few would argue that it offers the best GTA experience yet, and it has reviewed and sold as the best title in years.

I have to say, but the delay for Twilight Princess (that we know now was to make a Wii version, pissing the Cube fans) was not exactly the best. The first concept showed was more interesting than the final version (more open world, boat riding on Ordon Village, dark world being darker, etc).

I fear the same happens this time and game is released with a smaller world, or less features, or even less dungeons.

The underlined statements are true, yet do nothing to disprove my statement or prove yours. The fact that you can't see this shows how little you know about the technical details. You are saying that having the same core gameplay means having the same engine. They are not the same at all. I wrote a game in Conitec's 3D Gamestudio, and an Ideal Gas Law Simulator also. I want to port both software to multiple platforms, including mobile, so I'm going to redo the entire thing in Unity. Even if I don't make any tweaks or add any new features, even if it's the EXACT SAME SOFTWARE, they are running on completely different engines. Now, I didn't make either 3D Gamestudio nor Unity, but if I had to add the development of the engine to my development time, that would count for something. I can make a board game with Unity. My Ideal Gas Law simulator, racing game and board game can all run on the same engine. Gameplay is not equal to engine.

I wrote a simple Gif Image Viewer for windows. It was built with the .NET 3.5 framework, and won't run on a computer that has the .NET 4.5 framework, unless that computer also has the .NET 3.5 framework installed. When  making web apps with java, certain features may be implemented using the Tomcat server, and won't run on a Glassfish server, or vice versa, even if they are both running the same version of Java (let's say Java 6). I repeat: get your facts right before spouting out ignorant talk like you did earlier. There's nothing wrong with being wrong, as long as you're willing to learn and correct yourself.

I do think Zelda is probably inferior in terms of value to Nintendo in comparison with things like 2D Mario, Mario Kart, Pokemon, etc

But Zelda (along with 3D mario) has long since been their flagship series when it comes to game design and technological innovation. They spend so long because the series has such a high standard, the games are usually quite large, and they're always trying to get something new into them.

So you had to convert a program to Unity

 OMG! Doesn't change the fact that Window, GTA and Zelda are all heavily built on previous gens. Get it together champ!

Lets be real I doubt they are using the 5 years to develop the game. Probably spend 2 years playing around with ideas