But the thing is that most studios suffer delays, these are just in the last 1-2 years.

Microsoft-ReCore, Quantum Break, Crackdown 3

EA Games-Battlefield Hardline, Mirror's Edge 2, Mass Effect: Andromeda

Square Enix-Final Fantasy XV, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Kingdom Hearts 2.8

Platinum Games-Nier: Automata, Scalebound

But most games don't get pushed back as far as Zelda has, and most studios aren't as anal about polish as Nintendo.

The post i quoted from you was saying Nintendo in general is worse about delays than the rest of the industry, which is not true. With the exception of Zelda, most Nintendo delays arent any worse than rhe delays from other publishers.

And i listed 2 games that had way worse delays than Zelda, Last Guardian & Final Fantasy XV.

They are worse than most of the rest of the industry. Nintendo have delayed more games this gen than most other publishers.

Studios come and go, but the AAA machine itself shows no sign of collapse. Publishers like Sony, Microsoft, Activision, Bethesda, etc are doing just fine.

And Zelda would not be damaged if BotW was released a bit unpolished. Games like Elder Scrolls and GTA have remained massive for decades despite not being the most polished games. Skyward Sword already shipped with a potentially game-breaking bug. Nintendo's delays and the resulting droughts have led to immense failure for them this generation, while publishers that are less anal about polish are doing far better.

I meant in terms of how long the delays are, the majority of Nintendo delays are for a few months like most other publishers.

Your other argument was that other publishers were thriving without realizing that Nintendo has sold more software than any other publisher this generation.

Studios and developers dropping off is a sign of future collapse for the AAA approach, a number of developers and designers like Ken Levine have stated their future plans no longer include accomodating such an approach, eventually AAA approach will be reduced back to what it was in the 90s a once in a while thing as rising development costs can no longer sustain the approach for prolonged periods, it will be one AAA every few years and thats it. This gen is set to sell far fewer harder than the last meaning a smaller pool of gamers to potentially migrate into the next, AAA costs will again rise, it's simple math as eventually the won't be a big enough consumer base to sustain the approach as the AAA approach requires the userbase grow significantly each gen with out fail. More hardware was sold last gen than any other yet a large number of developers went under.

Zelda would be damaged by being unpolished because the series has gathered a reputation for it, GTA may have some issues but it's way more polished then many other games. Nintendo's delays didn't lead to this gen it's the handling of the Wii U that did as it was them trying to listen to other people rather than do their own thing, again other publishers aren't doing better than them Nintendo has sold the most software among them.

See, I've been hearing this same claim of imminent AAA apocalypse for years now, yet it hasn't happened. It's starting to feel a bit like those proclamations of the world ending that keep getting pushed back, from the cold war, to Y2K, to bird flu, to 2012, to whatever the next big scare is. It hasn't happened, and I'm confident that 5 or 10 years from now, it still won't have happened. AAA games still dominate the charts and sell multiple million year in and year out. They're not going anywhere. This fabled collapse is, IMO, the wishful thinking of people who don't like the AAA business model.

The Wii U's severe game droughts were a significiant factor in its failure. Those droughts were often caused by a failure to meet software deadlines. If Wii U had no game droughts, it wouldn't have been such a disaster.

Except part of the collapse has already happened you just chosen to be blind to it and don't even understand the point being put across, AAAs won't disappear but they won't be common either as the cost of them will become too high for developers to try and turn every title into a AAA title, fact that highly regarded developer are starting to shy away from the approach backs this.

If Wii U didn't have droughts it would have still had the same problems, I know you're irritated by the delay but sorry trying to pin all the problems to missing deadlines is non sense, the problems were much more than that from consumer confusion to even pricing.

Activision, Sony, Microsoft, Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft, none of them are in danger of imminent collapse, and none of them are backing away from the AAA model.

And I didn't say all of Wii U's problems were due to delays, there were definitely other factors, such as marketing, power, and pricing, but the droughts that resulted from key software being delayed definitely hurt the system.

Yet once big hitters like Factor 5, Freeradical and even a once huge publisher like THQ went under so your few exceptions doesn't override reality mate.

Deadlines are only part of the story the full story is that they had two platforms to develop for as well, the total software output is actually more than any other publisher.