When I think of a developer that often delays games, Nintendo developers are not the developers that I think of.

The biggest delayers of all time would be Square Enix, but also Polyphony in 2nd due to GT5.

Though I must say TLOZ devs are definitely attaining that reputation due to BOTW and BOTW2.

Nintendo will have a delay problem when they delay my precious Xenoblade 3.

Also, Zelda games getting delays are so expected nowadays. They did the same thing for Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild.(Don't forget Ocarina of Time!) We were complaining about those delays back then too. Other series have no problem getting released in time. So it seems more of a Zelda issue.

The only Home Console Zelda games not delayed were the 2D ones, Wind Waker (Which was extremely rushed) and Twilight Princess (Which was rushed out to meet the Wii Launch Date).

Like they say:

What ten programmers can do in ten hours, twenty programmers will do in twenty hours.

I'm fairly certain TP was announced for 2005, but delayed to be a crossover title? I might recall incorrectly though.


OT: Regarding the botw sequel delay, I'm pretty sure it's all about timing. 2022's got plenty of upcoming games so they'd rather not saturate the release schedule.

Outside of Sakurai Nintendo does not seem to have a crunch problem. The man has always worked ridiculous hours since he started work on Melee and I don't know why Nintendo doesn't do something about it. Nintendo intervened in Retro Studios after the release of Prime 1 to end the problem of employee crunch.

Nintendo as a whole has gone back and forth on delays being an issue. The n64 was delayed until late 1996, long after the competition launched, and Nintendo didn't have many games for it for a long time. The Gamecube had a problem of big Nintendo games being released before they were done like Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine. Even Melee was technically released early with a lot of content cut, but that worked out for the best. The Gamecube was failing and Nintendo needed to get its games out quickly even if they weren't complete. The only really big game to get delayed was Twilight Princess. With the Wii Nintendo finally seemed to be taking the time to complete their games again, with Prime 3, Brawl, Skyward Sword all getting delays. The Wii's success gave them more breathing room. With the jump to HD for the Wii U development took longer and it was a year before the system started getting the games it needed, Tropical Freeze was delayed from 2013 to 2014, and I think Mario Kart 8 was also delayed but I'm not sure about that. It seems that Nintendo realized there was no saving the Wii U and so they made the smart decision to take their time to maintain their brand image of quality games rather than rush games out the door, and to release a number of smaller games to fill the gaps like NES Remix and Captain Toad. With Splatoon they struck upon a model of releasing online-focused games in a not-quite complete state but adding free updates to maintain interest, so we see that in games like Mario Tennis and Animal Crossing. But otherwise they seem to release their games in a completed state on the Switch. In general they like to announce games close to release and have done so since 2010, but when they announce games farther out delays are likely.

Yeah, pretty much agree.  Didn't mean to imply I thought Nintendo had a problem with delays.  Just trying to point out that it seemed odd the thread was calling out Nintendo specifically.

I get the Zelda delay but I don't get the delay of advanced wars since we have wars all the time and that never delayed war games >_>