Why Skyward Sword didn't launch in Christmas 2010
Miyamoto: "It would have felt like a waste."
Releasing Wii epic Zelda: Skyward Sword last Christmas might have been more convenient for the company's bottom line, but making sure the game was perfect came first, according to Nintendo's top brass.
Speaking in the latest Iwata Asks session on Nintendo's official site, CEO Satoru Iwata explained that sometimes it's important to do what's best for a product rather than for the short term concerns of the company itself, or an individual within it.
"When [developers] end up going with what's most convenient for them, they've got their priorities mixed up. And that's dangerous," he explained.
"That's why, even when there are extenuating circumstances, and other interests in play, you need to be able to reconcile them. It's not good to think only about your conveniences."
Miyamoto added that it might have been possible to release Skyward Sword this time last year - as originally mooted - but it would been the wrong thing to do.
"If we'd only been thinking about what was most convenient for the company when we made this new game The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, we probably would have put a half-finished product on sale last Christmas by saying that we have managed to make it on time just because it was the order from the company."
He explained that the development team had used the first half of the ensuing year to finish the core game and the second half to fine-tune it.
"Because the game we were making was so huge, we needed to work that hard on it. Otherwise it would have felt like a waste. We spent so much time making a really good game and it came out so well that it would have been a waste not to make sure that it was really polished.
"You came up with so many interesting elements while you were making it, and you spent a long time at the end making sure that those elements were included in the game," added Iwata. "That's what made it so dense."
Happily, it seems the game was well worth the wait - it picked up a perfect 10/10 in Eurogamer's Skyward Sword review.