I am making this thread to discuss Nintendo's history of delays, and maybe why they happen. The next Zelda is just a recent example. I understand Nintendo often wants polished games, wants to avoid crunch, and the world is still going through the largest pandemic in 100 years. But Nintendo has had tons of software delays over the decades, especially from the N64 days to now. 

I know little about game development, as do most people in the world. Do you think Nintendo having larger development teams would reduce dev time and delays? Are there even enough skilled workers out there to work on video games for this to happen? If there are enough workers out there, Nintendo should use some of their massive billions in capital and make larger teams. Several flagship Nintendo titles get delayed (by months or far more) every gen. And I'm just wondering if they can break the cycle. 

It just boggles my mind how a game that is reusing most assets of its predecessor will take 6 years to release when all is said and done. Hopefully it shakes things up more than initially thought and is very polished. 

I just think Nintendo doesn't believe in crunch and rather move their games most times instead of pushing for it to be rather. That said, for the amount of games they release, only a few suffer from delay.

Nintendo has a history of actually sitting on games for a few months before releasing them. For example, Odyssey was done for like 6 months before it got released. I do not think they have a problem with team size, it is probably just that they have to move things around to match other releases/hardware since they are their own money machine for their system.

Given the horror stories other studies have around crunch time, I am good with delays. Employee health is important. As gamers we should NOT expect people to work night/day for months on end just so we get a game sooner. There are plenty of other games available, not a big deal. Game delays is a poster child of 'first world problems.'

Larger studio is a thought, but too many people could make it difficult to streamline a project.  More people isn't always better, in my experience.

As long as Nintendo continues to release high quality software, I don't have a problem.

Personally I think Elden Ring could have used a delay.  While I like the game, too many (far too many) repeat bosses.  Many of the catacombs/caverns come off as just lazy as crap.  Take the time, do it right.  

The old saying too many cooks...

I rather delays then more people as team dynamics is more important in getting the game right.

The one that got me was the Advance Wars delay. If only Putin waited till April to invade. Hopefully there will be a peace treaty soon and Nintendo can release it by summer time.

Nintendo does NOT have a delay problem. They are probably one of the least delaying companies out there. It may seem like they have a problem, because their delays are entirely the huge hitters, but they launch tons of AAA and AA games on time, they hardly ever delay except Zelda mainly. MP4 doesn't count because it was a total restart by a different team. Bayonetta 3 isn't being developed by Nintendo. Zelda is the big one that gets delayed frequent, but Nintendo as a whole releases on time most often, unlike basically every other company.

What's with the belief that Nintendo developers don't work long hours? They used to be famous for it.

If anything they should perhaps delay their games more considering they are starting to get into the habit of releasing games that are lacking features and then relying on DLC to make the game complete.

Some recent examples would be New Horizons that was lacking a lot of things that were in the New Leaf game at launch. Now finally the game is pretty much complete (I didn't buy the DLC) but it is still lacking a lot of furniture sets from previous games. Mario Golf has very few courses until they released a few more after launch. Luckily most of the DLC they are releasing for their games are free but it doesn't excuse the practice. It isn't a huge deal but I don't like the way the game industry is going. Least a few publishers do it right eventually and not try to nickel and dime their consumer base. Others are exploitive and they should be punished with lower sales.

Nintendo is one thing, like you said they have a history of it, but it's also become particularly common in recent years with Sony and Microsoft also delaying flagship titles as well as many other publishers. I realize the pandemic is a big part of this, but I honestly feel that was only a truly valid excuse for the games that had their release dates announced before that started, which a lot of the games I'm referring to didn't. If anything developers should have been less prone to announcing release windows before they were very close to done after that.

Obviously it's still always better for developers to take their time and I'm sure most of these games are better because of those delays, but I'd still prefer if they hadn't made promises of too early release dates in the first place.

100% sure Nintendo crunch their developers. It's common in Japan, it's just don't get media coverage because people are more permissive there