Eiji Aonuma famously promised a 2015 release for Zelda Wii U at both E3 2014 and five months later at Geoff Keighley's Game Awards. He was quite adamant that he would deliver on this promise last December.

He already knew he was lying.

The story goes that after deciding Zelda would be delayed by a full year a few months into 2015 (hah!), Nintendo tapped Tantalus to give Twilight Princess a nice HD sheen on Wii U to fill the gap. It makes sense, after all it was said that Wind Waker HD only took about six months to make.

Here's the fatal flaw to that naive theory: Tantalus began hiring for their then-unspecified Wii U port in January... 2014. There are multiple sources agreeing on this, although the original links are dead. Tantalus hasn't released any new games since then, so what were they hiring for? Must have been Twilight Princess HD. Nintendo put them on it before Zelda Wii U was ever seen by the public.

Well, okay, maybe I'm making too many assumptions here. Maybe Tantalus was working on a project that fell through, never materialized. Besides, even if they were working on TPHD back in 2014, it doesn't prove Nintendo knew Zelda Wii U would be pushed back, right?

This is where it gets nice and meaty. Just this past February, the CEO of Tantalus stated on a podcast that said Wii U port would be released this very year. Is there any doubt now? Nintendo contracted Tantalus to remaster Twilight Princess for Wii U, and as of 9 months ago the planned release window was... basically on top of the supposed planned release window for Zelda Wii U.

Nintendo never planned on releasing Zelda Wii U this year. They knew a long time ago that it would be a 2016 game. So why lie? Just to drum up excitement for their home console last year? Uh... yeah?

I've been saying this for forever, and I don't think anyone believes me. They do it with toooonnnns of games. I call them out and I'm right 95% of the time, and I don't think it's coincidence.

They just want to placate us, so they give a release date they never had any intention of keeping. Star Fox is another one, and I remember Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze being that way too. They give us a date, I go "Yeah right," and some time later it's the ol' Please Understand.

I wasn't keeping tabs on DKTF when they announced it, but I sort of have to agree with Star Fox. Miyamoto is supposed to be in charge and I noticed he started being all over the place. When he was at the announcement for Pokemon Go I was 100% the game was being delayed

That does imply it'll havs taken them two years just for a port, that's a pretty big stretch. But I do agree they're just trying to build hype and keep the game relevant without actually having to show anything. For years they've been saying they were gonna show the game off here or there, which is why many of us at one point believed it could release as early as 2014.

Who knows? Honestly I don't think that Nintendo would just lie for the hell of it, they probably just underestimated something or some other thing got in the way.
Not like this hasn't happened before with other companies and what not.

Yeah, probably. By the end of 2014 I'm sure Nintendo was already sure they couldn't do much to "save" the Wii U, so they just decided to delay Zelda to postpone Wii U's life and contracted Tantalus to make a filler, TPHD.

Star Fox, I completely understand the delay for. The game was being rushed to that date as it was, and once Iwata passed, Miyamoto had to recede into a business role. With Miyamoto, you know he won't give an inch on a game he's directly supervising, so he eventually caved and delayed it. 

There was no reason for TF's delay, though. That said, I also don't think that was a case of giving a date to placate fans. I think they delayed it last minute chiefly to pad out 2014. 

Zelda, it was probably planned, yeah. That's hard to deny at this point. The others have strong arguments that could say otherwise though. 

Nintendo is far from the only publisher who delays games. "Real" delays do happen all the time, and if you predict that every game will be delayed of course you'll be right every time a game is delayed. It doesn't prove that the initial date was a ruse.

Psh, according to Aonuma Majora's Mask 3D took three years.

Do you have a better explanation for why Nintendo apparently began development of Twilight Princess HD in early 2014 with the intent of releasing it within roughly the same half-year as Zelda Wii U? So in December 2014 when Aonuma said Zelda Wii U would be released in 2015, and two months later when the CEO of Tantalus claimed that his game would also be released in 2015, was one of them lying? The only other possibilities are that the Tantalus game was not Twilight Princess (unlikely) or both games were meant to release at basically the same time.

I didn't jump to this conclusion. The timeline of events strongly suggests it. Nintendo was saying 2015 while they were quietly planning for 2016. Why else would Twilight Princess have been aiming for a 2015 release?

Nah.

I think they were expecting tantalus to finish twilight princess quickly, maybe end of 2014 to early 2015 similar to the turn around of Wind waker HD and still have Zelda Wii U for holiday 2015.

I suspect - going by the track record of tantalus (that is to say they are mix big of shit and decent), plus this being is their biggest project to date, plus Australia being a poor talent pool for the gaming industry and the high demands of Nintendo, that it took the team longer than expected to churn out twilight princess HD.

It just so happens that Zelda Wii U was delayed as well.

I don't think there is a conspiracy theory or Nintendo intentionally lying

Pretty much every Zelda game is delayed - then it kicks ass.
For those of you old enough to remember Ocarina of time was 11 months delayed. Best...Game....Ever....