Slashdot Mirror
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."
" A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever" - Miyamoto
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.
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.
Actually, the quote you're thinking of is "Delays are temporary, mediocrity is forever," and it was said by Victor Ireland, CEO of Working Designs. The line is even said by one of the characters in Lunar, one of the games that WD localized. The only place I've seen the mangled version of the quote attributed to Shigeru Miyamoto is here on Slashdot.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
"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.