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Aonuma says Legend of Zelda series isn't annual due to keeping up quality
Coming from a Shacknews interview with Eiji Aonuma...
"Ocarina of Time was the first 3D Zelda game. When you make a 3D game, you have all these 3D models. But in a 2D game, you're drawing all these 2D images. Even if you wanted to make another game right away, if the background is different, you actually end up having to re-draw everything. But in a 3D game, you can put those 3D models in different backgrounds and animate them. So Mr. Miyamoto thought 'well, actually shouldn't this make it easier for us to make a sequel? (referring to Majora's Mask)'
I think before, we did maybe try to make Zelda games come out faster. But there's so much expected of Zelda titles now, so you have to reach a certain level of quality, so that's why we started to take a bit more time now. I don't think it's necessary that development needs to be longer. But to reach a certain level of quality, there's just a certain amount of time that's needed. Obviously, the company is telling me that I need to put games out as quickly as possible.
It's not like we feel like we have a duty to get one out a year. Right now, we're able to split ourselves between the handheld and console games and have two teams. I think we're pretty efficient in getting games out on a regular interval."
Link
"Ocarina of Time was the first 3D Zelda game. When you make a 3D game, you have all these 3D models. But in a 2D game, you're drawing all these 2D images. Even if you wanted to make another game right away, if the background is different, you actually end up having to re-draw everything. But in a 3D game, you can put those 3D models in different backgrounds and animate them. So Mr. Miyamoto thought 'well, actually shouldn't this make it easier for us to make a sequel? (referring to Majora's Mask)'
I think before, we did maybe try to make Zelda games come out faster. But there's so much expected of Zelda titles now, so you have to reach a certain level of quality, so that's why we started to take a bit more time now. I don't think it's necessary that development needs to be longer. But to reach a certain level of quality, there's just a certain amount of time that's needed. Obviously, the company is telling me that I need to put games out as quickly as possible.
It's not like we feel like we have a duty to get one out a year. Right now, we're able to split ourselves between the handheld and console games and have two teams. I think we're pretty efficient in getting games out on a regular interval."
Link