Prettty much the same company with a different brand for certain games. It's a bit confusing but according to this interview:

"The two are sister companies, and share the same studio and technology... We started the Straight Right label as a way of differentiating from the kids and family stuff for which Tantalus was growing synonymous."

Ah, I was unaware they were that close, I thought they were associated but had independent studios and tech.

Maybe TPHD was planned for a summer release (they said in February that it will be announced soon) and Nintendo wasn't satisfied with the quality.

Tantalus/Straight Right also did the ZombiU port.

Maybe Nintendo delayed it to spring to make it a 30th anniversary game and to have a spring game. That was probably before the Star Fox Zero delay...

Or the game that they were working on since early 2014 wasn't TPHD and got cancelled. I remember that it was supposed to be a third-party game according to the interview, but maybe it was a misunderstanding.

I really think that a 2015 release of Zelda Wii U was planned in 2014. That would have been the big holiday game.

Interesting food for thought, but I doubt Nintendo are capable of being that cunning.

If they really are I would actually be impressed.

They probably knew it, they are not dumb, but business decisions you know. Anyway, I can't see any conspiracy at all.

Have you considered that, what they're actually doing in 2016, they planned to do in 2015? That is, TP HD for mid-2015, then Zelda U for holiday 2015?

Think about it - TP HD is primarily a port. Yet it has taken over two years for them to make it. Why?

Here's what I'm thinking - Nintendo planned on having a Zelda U demo or teaser of some sort attached to TP HD's release; they would have TP HD revealed at E3 2015, announced as "releasing NOW", and Zelda U would have a demo ready to go with it - suddenly, everyone would have an opportunity to try out the Zelda U demo being used at E3, all they had to do was buy TP HD. In February, Tantalus was saying that their port was going to release this year. Then in March, Zelda U was delayed. I think TP HD got delayed along with it, and since they had more time, Tantalus has probably added some new content or features (Hero mode, Amiibo support, and probably a few other things).

I suspect that Star Fox Zero was originally a 2016 title, and when they lost both Zelda titles from the 2015 lineup, they tried to bump up SFZ to be a holiday 2015 title... but when they realised that they wouldn't get it up to scratch in time (the roughness of the E3 trailer supports the idea that they were trying to rush it), it got delayed again, too. I also suspect that both Mario Tennis and Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival were made to help fill the void left by Zelda, thus why Mario Tennis is so lacklustre and ACAF seems like a pale imitation of the Mario Party titles - they're titles that make use of Nintendo's big franchises in a way that they could make quickly - I'd bet that both titles were only in early stages of development when Zelda U was delayed, and they rushed both titles.

It makes a whole lot more sense than "Nintendo knew Zelda wasn't going to release in 2015, so they annoyed their fans by announcing a date they knew they wouldn't reach, since we all know that people often buy systems well ahead of time for a game they haven't even seen yet"

I agree it's suspiciously long, but it's more likely due to reworking things later to utlize Amiibo when they realized it was a bigger success than first thought

Your options on the poll are really bad (they are very biased).

I don't think I can say if they meant to or not. Its not that they just would lie to drum up hype, there are probably a lot of complications to it. One of the probable one for, as an example, Star Fox is that they knew the game need 5 months more debelopment time than they were giving it, but they also needed a good holdiay title, because Nintendo knows they are not going to have a good holiday for Wii U as they did in 2012-2014.

Almost every 3D Zelda game was delayed, so it's not surprise that Zelda U is also delayed (especially because it's first HD, biggest and true open world Zelda game) so I really don't see any conspiracy in Zelda U delay.

I don't really think that would be the case.. Releasing Zelda U later than earlier isn't better for Nintendo so I'm sure they really wanted to get a 2015 release (like with Star Fox) but it became apparent that they can release it so fast

Especially with the NX reveal being in 2016, it may hurt Zelda U sales, so I don't think they wanted to have it like this in the first place