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What if Skyward Sword had been delayed to early 2012?

Iridescence

Emancipated Wind Fish
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2011 was a competitive year with so many acclaimed games: Portal 2, LA Noire, Uncharted 3, Gears of War 3, Dark Souls, Skyrim, Batman and so on. 2012, however, was a much less eventful year.

If Skyward Sword had been delayed 2 months, it would have won dozens of game of the year awards and the Wii would have had something for 2012.
 
I've noticed that Naughty Dog likes doing this: Delaying their games, which in all fairness are great AAA games, to less competitive years to garner more accolades.

I don't think competing for Game of the Year awards is something video game companies should strive for. If a game manages to win an award, that's great, but for any company the most important aim is profit. This is especially true for hardware manufacturers like Nintendo. The Wii had a very barren 2011, and it needed a big game to propel it through one last holiday season before the launch of the Wii U.
 

Dio

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Delays just piss fans off. The problems in SS could not have been fixed in 2 months and the game would have been even more disappointing because of the delay.

Also it would have meant I would have played Skyrim first which would have made it seem even more of a letdown in my eyes as Skyrim was the one I played after and was a pleasant surprise when it was actually better than a 3d Zelda game.
 

Iridescence

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Delays just piss fans off. The problems in SS could not have been fixed in 2 months and the game would have been even more disappointing because of the delay.

2 more months would at least be enough time to do the following:
  • Remove the "you just collected this artifact" notification
  • Remove Fi's "your battery is running low notifications"
  • Make Fi's hints optional rather than imposed on the player
  • Allow bird statue to bird statue warping
  • Add a few more minigame islands to the overworld
Would this totally revolutionize the game? No, but it would've taken away a number of the frustrations.
 

Dio

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2 more months would at least be enough time to do the following:
  • Remove the "you just collected this artifact" notification
  • Remove Fi's "your battery is running low notifications"
  • Make Fi's hints optional rather than imposed on the player
  • Allow bird statue to bird statue warping
Would this totally revolutionize the game? No, but it would've taken away a number of the frustrations.

Frustrations they did not know even existed would have been taken out if they had a couple more months to make the game? That's absurd. The public would have needed to play the game to make Nintendo aware that these things were frustrating. Had the delay happened these things would certainly not have been removed, in the case of the annoying notifications, they were added on purpose or else they wouldn't be there. The annoying notifications are present also in TP when you collect a rupee after starting up a game again from an old save. It is obvious that if they wanted to not have it then it would not have been put in.

The extra mini games on the islands is not realistic either. They had so many years to make the game that if they desired extra minigames they would have been there. They simply didn't have any ideas when it came to putting in minigames.
 

Iridescence

Emancipated Wind Fish
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Actually, I remember Bioshock Infinite being delayed from holiday release to winter release of the next year. And that game got lots of praise.

It got lots of attention and discussion because not much else came out that month. Skyward Sword was so neglected, especially for a major title in one of the biggest gaming franchises. If it had come out March 2012, it would have the entire month to it self.
 
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Well, they wanted it out in time for the 25th Anniversary, so i don't think they'd have delayed. And I don't think it really hurt them to have it in '12, I think I read somewhere that it was the fastest sellout of any Zelda title? Something like that? I might be wrong though. I mean, last I checked, they sold just under 4 million units I believe.
 

Spiritual Mask Salesman

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Well, they wanted it out in time for the 25th Anniversary, so i don't think they'd have delayed. And I don't think it really hurt them to have it in '12, I think I read somewhere that it was the fastest sellout of any Zelda title? Something like that? I might be wrong though. I mean, last I checked, they sold just under 4 million units I believe.
It sold about 3.41 million units worldwide. Sales-wise it was pretty successful, especially considering all the other popular games released around the same time, I think he means how might the game benefitted from being delayed. See the problem with Skyward Sword was the fact that prior to it's release, and when it was released it had huge hype. After people played it a big majority of people didn't really like it.
 
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It sold about 3.41 million units worldwide. Sales-wise it was pretty successful, especially considering all the other popular games released around the same time, I think he means how might the game benefitted from being delayed. See the problem with Skyward Sword was the fact that prior to it's release, and when it was released it had huge hype. After people played it a big majority of people didn't really like it.

Huh. The sites I found said its sales were closer to 3.9 million. And I also know a lot of people who say it's their favorite Zelda game ever (which saddens me).

Honestly, I can't see how it would have benefited because from the final product, it is pretty clear that the main grievances were not things they thought needed fixing. The game was incredibly constrained and linear because that's the finished product they wanted to make. It stemmed from a thoroughly misguided principle design philosophy.
 

Azure Sage

March onward forever...
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I don't think a delay would have changed much. The game was as good as it could have been upon release. The main thing delays are for is to make sure there are no bugs and stuff. That's what is meant by "taking the time to make it better". They are not gonna make big changes like changing game mechanics or other things like that in such a small window of time. It would have just been small performance fixes. The only thing that would likely be different is maybe they would have caught that game-breaking glitch sooner.
 

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