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Zelda: Twilight Princess Delayed
Hyrulist writes "Nintendo has announced that its biggest game of the year, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is delayed to 2006. IGN.com has the story. From the article: 'Twilight Princess, developed by Nintendo and directed by Majora's Mask overseer Eiji Aonuma, was previously set to be the company's big holiday game. In fact, analysts expected the game to be Nintendo's single greatest deterrent to consumers potentially interested in Microsoft's next-generation console, Xbox 360, which is set for a November launch. The delay leaves Nintendo without a major holiday release on GameCube."
This was pretty much the only thing I was looking forward to on the Gamecube.
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"A delayed game is eventually good, a rushed game is bad forever."
Argh, now that its pushed back, it will probably be released at either March or june earliest
At least we know this won't be rushed like Wind Waker
Does this mean that they're going to be pushing the DS more heavily?
The GBA is on its way out; look at the drop in releases this year. Nintendo's either going to have to push its newest portable or to find a new way to promote the Cube. I'm not sure what that's going to entail - price drop, perhaps? - but they'll have to get creative to sell this year.
Goo goo g'joob.
If Z:TP is being delayed until after March 31, 2006, and the Revolution is supposedly launching after March 31, 2006...what are the odds of Nintendo coming out and saying "Just kidding, this was a Revolution title all along. Oh yeah, and please buy the Revolution" or something similar? At any rate, I'm pretty disappointed.
The game was looking good and polished already at E3, so this delay just makes me wonder what they're adding. Maybe they've finally decided to include a cooking mini-game that Mr. Aunoma has half joked about creating for the last few years. :p
TWILIGHT PRINCESS SHEDS NEW LIGHT
I've played some games lately that had the potential for greatness (the most personally annoying for me being Vampire: Bloodlines) where it was obvious at some point that the developers ran out of time.
A quote something like this was attributed to Shigeru Miyamoto "A game delayed may eventually be good, but a bad game released is bad forever." I'm glad he's taking his own advice.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Was anyone actually expecting it to come out for this holiday season?
On the contrary, I think this proves that they're not feeling desperate - otherwise I think there would be a tendency to just rush it out without the extra polish.
I'm intrigued by the fact that Nintendo indicated that they were waiting until after the fiscal year to release the new game. Could this be a move to bump up Nintendo's bottom line for the 2006 fiscal year, when XBox 360, PS3, and Revolution will all be out on the market? Nintendo has hopes that the game will be a "multi-million seller," and giving the current attitude for its next gen console compared to the others, it might be a way to cover its bases and ensure that, even if Revolution's launch isn't what the company hopes for, it can deflect the blow as much as possible.
I think i just smoked a big crack rock not to post this anonymously but i didnt like any zelda game after a link through time.
Mayby this will be different, if you delay a game that means it has the potential to be good, mayby they should apply this idea to the revolution.
This is hardly the first time that Nintendo have seriously delayed a flagship game. They should just do what iD does and announce the release dates for all their games as "When it's done" and save the fanboys from going into conniptions annually when their one good game gets pushed back six months.
Check out my foes list to see who is so retarded that they can't use the signature line!!!
I'm getting really tired of all the bashing and doomsaying Nintendo gets when any little thing doesn't work perfectly for them - or even when it does. Nintendo's in the black? Nope, they're going to start losing money eventually. The latest Zelda sold millions of copies? It's still less than Ocarina of Time, which means they're going to fall before long! Ugh.
I, for one, am glad that Nintendo is taking the time they need to devlop the game further. Nintendo has always produced the highest quality games and if this is the step they need to take to continue that trend then I say go for it. Hopefully the extra time will allow them to deepen the game and produce a title that can be compared to Ocarina of Time. Fans have been waiting for a Zelda title that brings them back to those N64 days that they remember and, with the extra time and effort, Twilight Princess looks like it may be that title.
The difference in hardware nowadays is very slim. Back when you went from atari2600 to nintendo 8 bit, the gap of what is possible was monumental. Now a faster system merely means you can add a few extra monsters or pictures on the wall. I think its very likely that today's consoles can last well into the next generation consoles' life. As long as next generation consoles are backwards compatible with the previous console, then manufacturers will still find profits making games for the old system. In fact if the next generation systems are going to be as expensive as rumored to be 350-600$ pricetag, then many people won't adopt the new system. If 70% of users have an old system and 30% of users have the new system, then it could be cost effective to release for the old system, and make another version of the game with better graphics for the new system. If you're going to release on PC, you're going to have to have different optimizations anyway, so optimizing for different consoles isn't that costly. The more we edge further into the future, the more that is possible will happen. The other side of the coin is that as more stuff is possible, there is less undiscovered stuff possible.
God spoke to me.
Noooooooooooooooo!!!
At least you'll get it before Duke Nukem Forever!
"After much discussion, the Zelda development team has requested extra time to add new levels, more depth and even higher quality to Zelda: Twilight Princess. Consequently, we're announcing a new global launch in 2006," stated Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo of America's vice president of Marketing and Corporate Affairs.
that means it will be released when its ready and when its polished and realitvely bug free rather than to fit a schedule. Nintendo and Blizzard perhaps the last companies that release games when their ready to ship.
Maybe they had some issues with the Tingle casting?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441877/
Nintendo's just been having to roll with the punches lately. Given the poor reaction to their last Zelda title, they need to bounce back with a game of high quality that not only rises to meet standards, but to excell to make up for the latest disappointments. Given the fact that it won't be ready for Holidays is going to hurt sales, though. I guess you just take what you can get. Of course, a single Zelda title isn't going to keep me away from X-Box or Playstation anyways.
I'll buy a XBOX350 and play ZELDA on that console!
./ think USMicrosoft is much better than Nintendo.
We here at
Hahahaha... XBOX rules!!
No doubt, if the new Zelda title would be ready for the upcoming holiday season, Nintendo would sell many copies, and probably a few gamecubes to boot. More so than probably any other time of the year.
But this might not be such a blunder, on their part. With Zelda out of the picture, they can focus their holiday marketing on the DS and online strategy. MarioKart DS and Animal Crossing DS are both internet enabled, scheduled to be released in the fall. If Nintendo does this right, they'll secure their dominance in the handheld market for yet another generation. Much more important than selling cubes, imho.
Nintendo will still be able to use Zelda's later launch date to their advantage. Being the Revolution is backwards compatible, they can release both the game and system at about the same time. Might be enough to inspire some folks to pick up the revolution. Especially if they offered a bundle.
the cosmos in 20 words or less: thumbuki.com
I think this news is good for Zelda as a game. They're willing to delay its release in order to ensure quality.
However, I think it's potentially dire for Nintendo as a whole. Zelda was the last greatly-anticipated GameCube title, and this means there's a bit of a lull going into the Christmas season. Especially since Zelda sells hardware, this could mean a bad (well, worse) Christmas for GameCube.
Also, the new launch date is around the time that the Revolution launches, which will create some undesirable overlap - on one hand, they're selling a new system, on the other, they're selling a triple-A title for their last system. Which generation are they supporting? What's going on?
It's possible that Zelda will become a Revolution launch title, of course (or, since the launch windows for both are pretty broad at this point, there could be less interference than I'm imagining).
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
This is very interesting considering hopes Nintendo would release the Revolution in mid-late 2006. Arguably, this will be better than any launch title for Revolution. Nintendo would seem to be setting up to slit its own throat at retail by sacrificing interest in the new machine.
There are a few possible results of the delay that I see.
1) Revolution is delayed or otherwise coming out in 2007. This is the Nintendo way, and the most probable conclusion we can draw. I hate this option. Nintendo will do no good with its day-late-and-dollar-short strategy again. Yes, it's about the games, Nintendo. The games everyone else is making for Sony because they have a console to work with and you don't.
2) Zelda is being positioned as a bundle-in with the Revolution. Revolution is backwards compatible with the Gamecube so it is possible to bundle them together. There would be plain vanilla Revolution units sold for say, $200, and "limited edition" Zelda bundles for say, $250. Normal boxes are black, limited edition are yellow or green or maybe two-tone. They can draw in new users without forcing them to invest in dead hardware.
This is a neat idea, but unlikely since this would cause market confusion with users that don't understand the difference between a Gamecube game and a Revolution game; they just know that Zelda doesn't look as good as Madden 2006 on the Xbox 360. Revolution graphics therefore aren't as good.
3) Of course, Nintendo could also sacrifice ZELDA by releasing it against the Revolution with little advertising support. Hardcore fans of Zelda will buy it anyway. They aren't going to win over many people at this juncture.
4) The least possible. Zelda is being ported to Revolution. Problems: Totally remake all artwork, the most expensive and time consuming aspect of production. Totally new controller that the game was never designed for. No matter how much time and money Nintendo wastes on it, it will inevitably feel like a last generation game.
...you'd know that Perrin Kaplan said that that wasn't the case, since she thought that people might suspect that. Twilight Princess is coming out for GameCube: the (tentative launch) Revolution Zelda game is a different game.
on one hand, they're selling a new system, on the other, they're selling a triple-A title for their last system. Which generation are they supporting? What's going on?
If Nintendo can release Fire Emblem (GBA) and Nintendogs (Nintendo DS), what stops it from releasing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (GCN) and Super Smash Bros. Revolution (Revo)? Granted, it's claimed to be a third pillar, but so is my ****.
i didnt like any zelda game after a link through time.
GANNON-BANNED! Let's try that again:
i didnt like any zelda game after a link to the past.
What was wrong with Link's Awakening, the Oracle games, and The Minish Cap?
While I definitely agree with you that improvements aren't quite as profound as they were back then, the Atari 2600 and NES were released [farther] apart
True, 1977 (Atari 2600) to 1984 (Nintendo Family Computer) was longer than a typical console generation. But the improvements from the PS1/N64 generation (1995) to the Xbox 360 generation (2005) are still just more vertices and more texels on top of the same display model.
in the US
Now you're getting into region coding, not technology. Do you support or oppose Sony's effort to keep imported PSP systems out of Europe at all costs?
I think there is good strategy in this. Zelda fans get a complete, bug-reduced game, and the marketing budget for the holidays can be put towards more DS pushing. Nintendo knows it needs the DS to kick the PSP's ass this Christmas, or else it might not recover the marketshare, but they know that releasing Zelda at Christmas just doubles what they need to advertise, and won't really stop anyone from buying an X-Box360.
This way, Nintendo's name is in the spotlight for the DS Wi-Fi games during the holidays, and again a few months later for Zelda, and then a couple months later for E3's new Revolution news, and then maybe a couple months after that for the Revolution launch.
This is better than a half-assed marketing push for both the DS WiFi AND Zelda during the holidays (where there are a lot of competing ads for toys and the Xbox360), followed by Nintendo getting absolutely no press for an entire half a year, and then the Rev coming out and noone knows if they can trust Nintendo anymore (like what happened when the N64 died and Nintendo disappeared for a while in the news, and then waited to E3 the following year to announce the Cube).
Born to Play
The subject line may seem misleading at first, but bear with me, insomnia makes it difficult for me to keep things concise.
There seem to be two major camps on this issue: Those that think any delay to their precious Zelda game is either bad in that it keeps the game out of their hands or could hurt Nintendo financially, and those that are hoping that more time equates to better game.
In all honesty, the last game that a marketing department has managed to get me interested in far in advance was probably Fable. We were promised the (free-roaming) world, and we got a rail system.
Were it a game by any other company that didn't already have several great games that had come before it, I would write Zelda off as another example of developers biting off more than they could chew, and then realizing it isn't polite to spit out some of it at the table. At least with the big N, I can somewhat believe that one of their main objectives is making games that consumers enjoy, not just buy and then later feel ripped off by once the "new hot title" lost its marketing hype along with its shrink-wrap. If that's only due to Nintendo's marketing department, well, consider this my congrats on a job well done.
The only thing that concerns me is the statement that more time is needed so that more content can be added. Are more levels being added merely to make the game feel bigger, or because they will actually add to the story, and the game as a whole? Again, having the Nintendo branding helps ease my fears slightly, and the good looking graphics definitely distract me from that as well, but I'm hoping that the "additional content" will be more of an expansion of the game as a whole rather than an afterthought that is forced to mesh with what has already been completed. I know that I've played games that are "great" examples of the latter....but my memory is about as good as a fire extinguisher that tries to put out flames with gasoline.
There's also something to be said for getting it right on time. Does anyone make a AAA title and release it on time? What's the problem?
My wild ass guess is that Zelda: TP will be released for the GameCube a couple months before the Revolution release. However it will be announced when the game is released or shortly thereafter that there are one or more bonus dungeons and other additional content that can only be unlocked when playing the game on a Revolution using the backwards compatibility. This be great marketing and would help build the pre-launch hype if Zelda sells a lot of units (do we have any doubt on that point? :)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
It's been mentioned that maybe Nintendo will move the game over to their next gen system... I doubt this will happen, but...
Since the Revolution will be backward compatable, wouldn't it be possible to have the game sense whether it's in a GC or Revolution, and adjust graphics settings accordingly? Playable on GC, but better looking on Revo?
Computer games have graphics settings... It seems like it should be fairly easy to bring this type of thing to consoles as well.
I have noticed people tend to hang on to the Link though.
No sir, but we do have 700 copies of Madden, NBA Street, NHL 200(1)(2)(3)(4)(5) at 6 bucks a pop.
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Although I think it's wise on one hand to delay as game such as this if it's not where they want it to be, it's also a hugh risk financially. IMHO the last really great game on the Gamecube was Resident Evil 4, which I've already played to death, so to speak. I only own one Gamecube game right now, Killer 7 which is too much of a headf*ck for me to play with any regularity. I will most likely get the Revolution and either the PS3 or 360, but due to the price I plan to sell my Xbox and Gamecube to buy said consoles. That being said I don't know if I'm willing to hang on to my Gamecube long enough to play the new Zelda.
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