Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

You also need to look at a business perspective: why would Zelda, a top-selling franchise, need to take a break? Why would Nintendo need to bring back other franchises, which sell less than Zelda? It makes no business sense at all.

Wow. You sounded like a Call of Duty CEO and Ubisoft CEO for a moment there. "Its about business!!! Show me the money!!!!"

I feel like it already has, with Skyward Sword's "Knight Academy." It was so typical, it wasn't even subtle, lol.

Gamers often forget that companies want to make money. Big shocker, right?!

To start to have more viable franchises other than Zelda I guess. Its the same argument of why having the Iron Man films taking a break and doing something like Guardians. It makes plenty of business sense if you can make a less known IP start to sell in mass.

As for the actual Zelda news, while i'm shocked that the game will be skipping E3 entirely the fact that the game was going to be delayed is something I always thought was going to happen. Right now if we would have included Zelda Nintendo's back half (sep-dec) is looking packed to the gills in terms of releases. Getting Zelda out of the way and allows everything else to breathe get more focus this Christmas. Now the biggest reason this is good is that this means that Xenoblade will get a big push this holiday season. I mean let's be honest putting Xenoblade and Zelda a month or two apart would be canalizing each sales to some degree.

You sound like a child right now,you know that?It's always about money,what makes you think different?Because it's Nintendo?Dude there a company that wants your money and only that.

Yeah gaming is a pretty focused tested business in the AAA market. There's a pretty big reason why Ubisofts AAA games all sell well when their 4 core franchises use all of the same gameplay hooks.

There isn't money hungry companies in the gaming industry that have negative spotlight? Its okay to want money. Just don't let it ruin you and become a greedy clown. Businesses have failed for chasing money the wrong way. But hey!!! I sound like a child!!!

Companies don't just want to make money, they need to make money. If you don't make money as a company, you don't survive. You may call it greed, but it's the sustenance that it survives on. It's just like the food we humans eat. You may call us gluttons if we care about it too much, but there is a reason why we're worried about our paychecks; we absolutely have to have our daily meals, or we'll starve.

If Nintendo is any different, it's that they think more long-term than other companies. There is a reason their IP has lasted this long. But it's not that much different, really.

Most of the big companies (EA, Ubi, Actilizrd) are all too big to fail at this point. People like to point THQ failing as some AAA greed crash material. What they fell to realize was that THQ died because the licensed game market which most of their games were made of fell from under them and they blew a ton of money trying to make expensive new IP and on lame gadgets like that Uplay tablet.

With that said look at Activision the most cynically driven of all the AAA gaming companies. They have quite successfully mad e a ton of different product lines that bring in the cash.

On the Activision side you have
Call of Duty
Destiny
Skylanders/Guitar Hero

On the blizzard side
Heartstone
Heroes of the Storm
World of Warcraft

Why do you guys think Smash is so big? One of the many reasons is because its literally our only chance to see guys like Ness again. Some Nintendo IPs are walking around a graveyard. "But forget about the Mother series!!! Zelda makes more money!!! Announce Twilight Princess 3D! Who cares that the insults about Nintendo becoming a Mario and Zelda box keep growing? Announce another Zelda game! It makes us soooo much money!"

Smash is so big because its Smash. It has nothing to do with Ness or Captain Falcon or any of Nintendo's neglected IPs. Bringing Mother back would get a good response and it would be loved by fans, sure, but it could never be as big as the next Zelda or Mario. The truth is simply that more people know and care about Zelda than Mother, so it only makes sense to make more Zelda.

Lost in translation doesn't even begin to cover this... I never suggested any sort of diversity quota for any game. Let's not make jokes about random esoteric points that no one here made.

Here's the thing; games like Zelda U, that is to say, New 3D Zelda's are by no means over-saturating the market. The Zelda franchise might be, but there have only ever been 5 3D Zeldas, some limited by technology or flawed in the eyes of some. So 'Zelda' is by no means over-proliferated, the Zelda franchise might be. Outside of the new 3D games there are new 2D games, remakes of the first 3 3D games, and other games with the Zelda brand attached (Hyrule Warriors, Mario Kart 8 DLC, Nintendoland, etc).

Since the only reason I care about Zelda is for the 3D games, it's been too easy for me to not be overwhelmed by the franchise. By my reckoning Zelda releases have been pretty sparse lately; with Twilight Princess (2006) and Skyward Sword (2011) being the most recent ones. With everything being internet-based it's all too easy to ignore things; just don't search for them or click on them.

The reason we only see Ness once every so many years in a smash and that Nintendo's like an "ip graveyard" is exactly that, because all those dead ips are not profitable enough for nintendo to care about them.

You may make an "out of love" project here and there, but you need to give priority to the stuff that sells.

Smash is like, the best way to milk those dead ips. You get money from every fan club.

Arguing sales is a questionable idea when Nintendo just took away their own big holiday game for the year, so they clearly don't care.(only half-serious).

The most interesting thing about this is wondering what Nintendo has in store. I can't imagine they don't have something big in store for November.

Maybe they make Yoshi's Wooly World their big Christmas game?

While it may not make nearly as big of a buzz amongst the core fanbase as Zelda or Xenoblade would, it's still something most of them would at least be interested in, and it would have way more appeal to the rest of the potential market than Xenoblade, and probably even Star Fox, as it's Mario related. Mario Maker may fit here as well.

The interesting thing about this is that it would be far worse if Nintendo went 3rd party. Nintendo can afford to make AAA games that only sell a million copies because they're also profiting on hardware and paying no licensing fees. Their software sales would need to increase significantly in order to maintain the same profits as a 3rd party. A lot of IPs would just be dropped. The only IPs that would be guaranteed to profit are Mario, Mario Kart, Zelda, and Smash and without being able to subsidize with hardware, those are the only ones Nintendo would bother to make, year after year.

Outside of the obvious Pokemon and Animal Crossing, the recent Paper Mario games consistently sell over 2 million and Luigi's Mansion over 3. It is shocking, though, that the later 2 Metroid Prime games only sold 1.x million apiece, considering how great those games are. Pikmin and Fire Emblem even less than that.

It is surprising that they don't milk NSMB more, considering how well those games sell compared to how relatively cheap the development is. Speaking of trash, I wonder if Wii Sports and Mario & Sonic's sales will translate off of the Wii post Wii U.

It should also be said that, while it's within the realm of possibility that Nintendo could become a 3rd party console publisher, there's no way they'd leave the handheld market unless the DS' fortunes went the way of the Vita.

TBH I think Mario Maker is a veiled attempt to do this, it's NSMB in sheep's clothing and the second of the series for the Wii U.

I dunno, there's something about having 'Super Mario' in the title. Most people won't know what the heck 'Mario Maker' is.