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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."
"A delayed game is eventually good, a rushed game is bad forever."
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.
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."
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 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.
Sounds like it, given the game you mentioned doesn't exist.
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.
"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.
Maybe they had some issues with the Tingle casting?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441877/
While having LoZ:TP out in time for the Xbox 360 launch could steal away some of the Xbox 360's thunder and possibly change a few minds, I don't think it would do anything drastic. Slashing prices on the GameCube and offering bundles with the best games on the system already might be a better option.
If this article has any truth to it, Sony might be gearing up to drastically cut prices on the PS2. If Sony can do this, what's stopping Nintendo from lowering the price of a GameCube to $80 or less. I don't know what production costs are for one right now, but I think they could do it while remaining profitable if it suited their interests. Parents looking for a nice Christmas present for their children would be more willing to drop $80 - $100 than $300.
A great game on an old system isn't likely to push too many more sales or take away sales from competitors, but slashing the hell out of your price might do just that. Considering that Microsoft probably doens't want to lower the price of the current Xbox, firstly because it would cost them even more since they've been selling it at a loss already (it might be getting close to break even though), and secondly because the lower price would just cause more competition with their next generation console, which they might have a harder time selling than expected with all of the FUD from Sony.
Nintendo probably has some rough months ahead, but they've managed to stay out of the red quite well despite lackluster sales. Not to mention the mounds of money they've been accumulating from all the profitable times they've had for the past two decades.
Wind Waker is a reminder that a bad game from Nintendo tends to be better than most other companies' good games.
The only problem Wind waker had (bar the excessively long amounts of boring sea travel which was generally rather enjoyable at first and soon enough you get the song of gales) was that it was the sequel to one of the best games ever made(not including the side tales such as Majora's mask ).
Wind waker must of felt like Antonio Salieri
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
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.
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? :)
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