No mention of Smash Bros or Mario Kart 8?

*edit* sorry. No attention to detail.  :(

I'm from an era where you got one, maybe two Mario/Zelda/Metroid games every generation. I'm okay with the wait.

I'm talking about console Zelda entries though.

Nintendo after all is not a singular developer like the ones I listed, they are a large publisher that owns many studios, so I am not referring to their overall output.

Time, yes. 3-4 years for example would have been acceptable. 5 years though is just too long in my opinion when we consider that other devs have managed to craft very high quality AAA games in less time.

Technically Zelda for Wii U was revealed as a teaser tech demo at E3 2011... so it's been nearly 5 years lol.

That's a great infograph! And it talks about something that I, along with other fellow Zelda fans, have discussed here for a while: the lack of focus and excessive re-releases. We desperately need a new mainline game, and thankfully Zelda U/X will release this year to fill that gap.

Regarding Zelda, I think next gen Nintendo should focus on 2 things:

1- Building the mainline game in 4 years at max. Start production as early as possible and with a focused view/idea. Brainwash a lot before actually starting the thing... so you don't have that usual situation where Aonuma changes the artstyle or important aspects of the game in the middle of development

2- If you want a Zelda game almost every year, at least do the series some justice and make proper remakes and exciting spin offs. Hyrule Warriors was a decent atempt, can't say the same about Triforce Heroes... stay away from that.

Err... the last 2 titles are pushing it. I would rest at 6.

And that was with the failure of the PS3 and PS4! Oh wait... it's only cool to throw gratutious insults at the Wii U!

This is one thing i am sure isn't because of the Wii U. How easily we forget that this was Nintendo's jump to HD. The same one that bankrupted many publishers with the 360 and PS3. Also, that Nintendo's has never developed open world games internally. Only monolith has done it... again with the Wii U. Impossibru!!! But oh well... it must be the Wii U. :P

THAT'S nothing. Try waiting for a new good Sonic the Hedgehog game!

Hyrule Warriors is considered a Zelda game? I've always thought of it as a musou game, more in the vein of Dynasty Warriors than Zelda.

I still remember that January 23rd 2013 Nintendo Direct, I was so hyped and I was planning to get a Wii U.

Most of nowdays AAA titles have a 3/4 year development unless they are repetitve games with ENORMOUS budgets such as FIFA or CoD so I don't see where's the problem with waiting 4/5 years for the next Zelda. Also considering the time it took to make Zelda U, for 2 platforms (Wii U and NX) on a totally new engine, beeing the first HD project for the team aswell as their first open world game I think it's a given that they took so much to develop Zelda U. Also Nintendo might very well decide to throw at us another MM re-using the Zelda U engine to make a NX exclusive Zelda game in no time (probably they could do it even in two years...)

The problem is the development. The problem is that they delayed (most likely) for an NX version despite having the game already to be released. The problem is that accepting 5 years now will be like accepting 7-8 years in a future. The problem is that Aonuma doesnt know what to do anymore with the franchise. The problem is that they change a lot of things during development that prolongue the dev cycle because they dont have a clear idea of what to do.