Nintendo had and an investor’s Q&A in which Shigeru Miyamoto said that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild needs to sell over two million copies in the global market to be profitable. Miyamoto also stated that there are over 100 people on staff working on the game right now, and it will have over 300 people on the credits.
It is worth noting that the last Legend of Zelda game was The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and it had 328 people on its credit. It also sold 4.09 million copies according to VGChartz, so these figures are not very far off.
Mr. Shinya Tatashi Entertainment Planning & Development Division then hinted at a new direction with future Zelda titles calling them “compact titles” and comparing them to the Brain Training games. He also stated that they’re reusing game engines for new releases to reduce development time.
The statements were translated by the Twitter user @Cheesemeister3k and you can see them below in order for your convenience.
.@NStyles Miyamoto: Breath of the Wild has over 100 staff, and over 300 people in the credits, spending over 5 years. Our current efforts…
— Cheesemeister 😷💉💉 (@Cheesemeister3k) June 29, 2016
.@NStyles …will be helpful in the next production. The costs will be recovered by selling in large volumes, passing 2m sales.
— Cheesemeister 😷💉💉 (@Cheesemeister3k) June 29, 2016
.@NStyles A game is a hit in the domestic market if it reaches 300k sales, but we're targeting worldwide sales.
— Cheesemeister 😷💉💉 (@Cheesemeister3k) June 29, 2016
.@NStyles Miyamoto: Reviews on the Internet get around. Details get pointed out, so our staff is working more than is required.
— Cheesemeister 😷💉💉 (@Cheesemeister3k) June 29, 2016
.@NStyles That needs to be sustainable. A change of pace is required.
— Cheesemeister 😷💉💉 (@Cheesemeister3k) June 29, 2016
.@NStyles Shinya Takahashi: By using resources made for Zelda on other software, we can make many compact titles. The last Brain Training…
— Cheesemeister 😷💉💉 (@Cheesemeister3k) June 29, 2016
.@NStyles …sold a lot with small resources. We're doing lots of things to reduce development times like reusing game engines.
— Cheesemeister 😷💉💉 (@Cheesemeister3k) June 29, 2016
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will be released on the Wii U and the Nintendo NX in 2017.
