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[Shikamaru Ninja]

Courtesy of Kyoto Report, here is a brief analysis of Breath of the Wild development team.

Lead Staff

Director
Hidemaro Fujibayashi (Director of Skyward Sword)

Assistant Director
Daiki Iwamoto (Director of Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks)

Lead Planner
Kentaro Tominaga (A Link Between Worlds and Skyward Sword)

Program Director
Takuhiro Dohta (Wind Waker HD and Nintendo Land)

Art Director
Satoru Takizawa (Wind Waker, Ocarina of Time)

Sound Director
Hajime Wakai (Skyward Sword)

Music Composer
Manaka Kataoka (Animal Crossing: New Leaf)
Yasuaki Iwata (Mario Kart 8)

Script
Akihito Toda (Pokemon Ranger, Super Smash Bros. 3DS)

Assistant Producer
Makoto Miiyanaga (Director of Link's Crossbow Training)

Producer
Eiji Aonuma

General Producer
Shinya Takahashi (current R&D Manager)
Shigeru Miyamoto (previous R&D Manager)

Developer:
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (EPD Production Group No. 3?)

Assistant: (Listed in order game credits them)
SRD Co., Ltd. (Nintendo funded programming team located in Nintendo's Kyoto Development Center, assisted programming)
Monolith Software Inc. (assisted over-world topography / additional graphic art)

Cooperation:
Anima Inc.
AnimationCafe INC.
AVANT Inc. (additional graphic art)
charabans,inc.
Digital Environment Creations Inc.
Digital Frontier Inc. (additional graphic art)
ENIGMAX? Co., Ltd.
GART 3DCG STUDIO Inc.
Graphinica, Inc.
IMAGICA DIGITALSCAPE Co.,Ltd. / BAUHAUS ENTERTAINMENT (additional graphic art)
ModelingCafe INC.
NAC Inc.
Q'tron,Inc.
quack-luck Inc.
SEVEN DREAMS INC.
TOSE CO., LTD.
Twenty Eleven Co.Ltd. (additional graphic art)
WITCHCRAFT Inc.
Mario Club Co., Ltd.
DIGITAL Hearts Co.,Ltd.
Kenproduction Co., Ltd.
ARTSVISION Co.,Ltd.
Sound Racer Ltd. (additional sound design)
Ventuno Inc. (additional sound design)
Face Music
Formosa Group
KiteTeam a Keywords Studio
SIDE UK
Keywords Studios

- Notes -
* Hiromasa Shikata nor Shiro Mouri of the 2D Zelda team contributed to this game
* Near 400 names credited. Not including entire companies.
* 100+ Nintendo in-house staff
* 100~ SRD, Monolith, Mario Club Nintendo of America, Nintendo of Europe
* 100+ Outsource companies
* Nintendo and Platinum Games have adopted similar art outsourcing strategies.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

I love how the guy with the purple shirt and red hair is immediately noticed lol.

 

[OricWindstar]

Mario Kart 8 / Animal Crossing composer combo. Good lord.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Motherfucker got on red shoes.

 

[AmyS]

They deserve a nice vacation before starting development of the next main Zelda adventure!

 

[SpiceMelange]

I wonder how much total money this project burned through. Completely worth it in any case.

 

[Joeshabadoo]

It takes a village....

a fucking amazing village

 

[DarkChronic]

Script
Akihito Toda (Pokemon Ranger, Super Smash Bros. 3DS)



I guess I should reign back my hope for a story focused Zelda, yeah? Ha.

So close, GAF. Can't wait for Friday.

 

[Outtrigger888]

I wonder how much total money this project burned through. Completely worth it in any case.

I thought I read somthing that it needed to sell 2 million copies to be successful. Sounds a bit on the low end.

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

Script
Akihito Toda (Pokemon Ranger, Super Smash Bros. 3DS)



I guess I should reign back my hope for a story focused Zelda, yeah? Ha.

So close, GAF. Can't wait for Friday.

I imagine the scenario came from one of the Nintendo creative leads. Toda is just there for the literal text.

 

[AquaWateria]

I wonder how much total money this project burned through. Completely worth it in any case.

I believe its 2 million.

 

[Spine_Ripper]

Mario Kart 8 / Animal Crossing composer combo. Good lord.

Hah, same thing that excited me the most. Love me some Zelda tunes.

 

[tauroxd]

Script
Akihito Toda (Pokemon Ranger, Super Smash Bros. 3DS)



I guess I should reign back my hope for a story focused Zelda, yeah? Ha.

So close, GAF. Can't wait for Friday.

Which how much focus they are putting in the freedom the game lets you have, why hold on to the hope of a heavy story focused game?

I'm not saying there it is not going to be a story, but think more of MGSV.

 

[Jpop]

Script
Akihito Toda (Pokemon Ranger, Super Smash Bros. 3DS)



I guess I should reign back my hope for a story focused Zelda, yeah? Ha.

So close, GAF. Can't wait for Friday.

Being a script director does not mean he is creating the story. It means he is writing the story.

 

[DarkChronic]

Which how much focus they are putting in the freedom the game lets you have, why hold on to the hope of a heavy story focused game?

I'm one of the weirdos who cares about Zelda lore. Not proud of it, lol. But I like the fact that they tried to link the games together. It's fun if you don't take it too seriously.

 

[astrogamer]

It's impressive that it's just 3 people on music (though a lot more on sound design).

 

[Banjotanooki]

Hidemaro Fujibayashi was also the director of the Zelda Oracle games, btw!

 

[Enforced]

Music Composer
Manaka Kataoka (Animal Crossing: New Leaf)
Yasuaki Iwata (Mario Kart 8)

Mario kart 8 soundtracks is incredible. I was expecting Ryo Nagamatsu to be on the list. He did great job in zelda between world.

I'm so hyped for this game. Can't wait!

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

Music Composer
Manaka Kataoka (Animal Crossing: New Leaf)
Yasuaki Iwata (Mario Kart 8)

Mario kart 8 soundtracks is incredible. I was expecting Ryo Nagamatsu to be on the list. He did great job in zelda between world.

I'm so hyped for this game. Can't wait!

Nagamatsu was busy on Tank Troopers.

 

[SpiceMelange]

I believe its 2 million.

Huh... no way. This is grossly underestimating video game projects budgeting lol

 

[SatoAilDarko]

Monolith Software Inc. (assisted over-world topography / additional graphic art)

I kept getting big Xenoblade Chronicles X vibes whenever I saw mountains or stuff two cliffs with a river flowing through.

It seems flat surfaces on rocks are how you regain stamina between climbing. In X that's how I would jump to new areas and scale stuff super early. Way before I got a mech I had reached the last continent and explored a lot of stuff early.

I hope I can do the same with Breath of the Wild.

I believe its 2 million.

2 million is the number of copies they need to sell to break even.

 

[Cerium]

I too wonder what the budget on this game was. Worth every yen I'm sure.

No, thank you!

 

[OricWindstar]

Huh... no way. This is grossly underestimating video game projects budgeting lol

I believe Nintendo themselves said this.

 

[DecoReturns]

I believe Nintendo themselves said this.

They said 2 million copies needed to be sold to break even

 

[OricWindstar]

They said 2 million copies needed to be sold to break even

Oh, my bad. I misread the initial comment.

 

[SpiceMelange]

I believe Nintendo themselves said this.

Bruh just look at the amount of people who worked on this game and the amount of time it took. Cmon you think they were paid in peanuts and candy bars?

 

[Cerium]

They said 2 million copies needed to be sold to break even

So subtracting retailer cuts, manufacturing, and whatever else, we're looking at like $100 million to produce Breath of the Wild?

Bargain. Destiny cost five times that.

 

[OricWindstar]

Bruh just look at the amount of people who worked on this game and the amount of time it took. Cmon you think they were paid in peanuts and candy bars?

Haha, sorry, I misread what you were responding to.

 

[Nanashrew]

That's a lot of people!

 

[Lingitiz]

Huh... no way. This is grossly underestimating video game projects budgeting lol

Well I guess if you think about it...they're not spending crazy budgets on voice talent, performance capture tech, live action marketing pieces, weird mainstream product partnerships, and other things along those lines.

 

[SpiceMelange]

Well I guess if you think about it...they're not spending crazy budgets on voice talent, performance capture tech, live action marketing pieces, weird mainstream product partnerships, and other things along those lines.

You don't pay 300 people on for 5 years with 2 millions dollar.

 

[RareFantasy64]

Aonuma looks so cheerful there in the middle. I love that man

 

[guit3457]

Shikata and Mouri from the 2D Zelda team didn't work in the game...interesting

 

[EloquentM]

You don't pay 300 people on for 5 years with 2 millions dollar.

they didn't clarify their post. it's two million copies sold to break even.
2 million copies sold at 60 dollars is 120 mil dollars.

 

[Lingitiz]

You don't pay 300 people on for 5 years with 2 millions dollar.

Read the post I replied to again.

 

[SpiceMelange]

ummm 2 million copies sold at 60 dollars is 120 mil and that's to break even

Am I on punk'd?

Read the post I replied to again.

The post you replied to is mine?

 

[sanstesy]

You don't pay 300 people on for 5 years with 2 millions dollar.

It was 4 years, not 5!

 

[Teran]

There's always that one Japanese guy with a surgical mask.

Cute picture though, can't wait for the game to come out tomorrow.

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

You don't pay 300 people on for 5 years with 2 millions dollar.

Well fhe lead team probably worked on the game 5 years. Most of the additional production team probably worked 1-3 years on it. Depending what their role was.

 

[skypunch]

Side UK did the voice work for Xenoblade. The voice work in Xenoblade was great so I have no idea why they dropped the ball on Zelda.

Maybe the less good voice acting came from another company...

 

[SpiceMelange]

Well fhe lead team probably worked on the game 5 years. Most of the additional production team probably worked 1-3 years on it. Depending what their role was.

That is still a far, far, far cry of 2 millions dollars in anyway you can twist it

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

Side UK did the voice work for Xenoblade. The voice work in Xenoblade was great so I have no idea why they dropped the ball on Zelda.

Maybe the less good voice acting came from another company...

Side UK didn't do the English voice recording for this. Presumably Side UK's responsibility was the various European languages. They do language production and localization for several games' European languages. Smash Bros. was a game where they had a similar responsibility.

http://side.com/work/localisation-projects/

The English voice recording was directed by Jamie Mortellaro and done in Los Angeles.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Script
Akihito Toda (Pokemon Ranger, Super Smash Bros. 3DS)



I guess I should reign back my hope for a story focused Zelda, yeah? Ha.

So close, GAF. Can't wait for Friday.

Besides what has already been pointed out in that he doesnt create the story, and despite smash 3DS not even having a story to begin with

 

[skypunch]

Side UK didn't do the English voice recording. Side UK's responsibility was the various European languages. They do language production and localization for several games' European languages.

The English voice recording was directed by Jamie Mortellaro and done in Los Angeles.

Ah, thanks for the heads up. No way would Side UK deliver such an awful dub. That Jamie guy should think about handing voice direction duties to someone else.

 

[astrogamer]

Remember, a lot of the big names in Nintendo got their start on Zelda titles especially the younger ones.

Aya Kyogoku (Producer on Animal Crossing series) - First Nintendo game was Four Swords Adventures
Tsubasa Sakaguchi (Director on Splatoon) - First game credited for was Twilight Princess
Kosuke Yabuki (Producer of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and ARMS) - First game credited was Twilight Princes
Hiromasa Shikata (Director of ALBW and TFH) - First worked on Ocarina of Time
Yugo Hayashi (Director of Star Fox Zero) - First worked on Twilight Princess
Yoshiaki Koizumi - First worked on Link to the Past

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

Ah, thanks for the heads up. No way would Side UK deliver such an awful dub.

Oh, don't worry about it. Based on the names in the credits I have a feeling Nintendo produced the dub non-union. And yeah, Side UK set a really high standard so I was really hoping they'd be in charge of this one. Ah well. At least there's Xenoblade 2, hopefully...

 

[EloquentM]

That is still a far, far, far cry of 2 millions dollars in anyway you can twist it

I literally just explained this as have others. the information you were given was that 2 million copies sold would break even with the budget which means that the budget for the game was potentially around 120 million dollars. idk why that's confusing or why you continue to believe the budget was 2 million dollars.

 

[SpiceMelange]

I literally just explained this as have others. the information you were given was that 2 million copies sold would break even with the budget which means that the budget for the game was potentially around 120 million dollars. idk why that's confusing or why you continue to believe the budget was 2 million dollars.

Go check the comment chain again.

the information you were given was that 2 million copies sold

...no? Especially when Lingitiz replies back that my opinion of it being a gross underestimate of budget might be wrong.

And I see you edited your post when you saw it.

 

[Thoraxes]

I'm curious as to if Yokota handled orchestration since that's where more of his recent work has been (and he's very good at it and his touch is very easy to listen for). Once I hear the music in the game, it should become pretty obvious who handled that (unless someone gets a full music credits listing sooner).

 

[Nanashrew]

Remember, a lot of the big names in Nintendo got their start on Zelda titles especially the younger ones.

Aya Kyogoku (Producer on Animal Crossing series) - First Nintendo game was Four Swords Adventures
Tsubasa Sakaguchi (Director on Splatoon) - First game credited for was Twilight Princess
Kosuke Yabuki (Producer of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and ARMS) - First game credited was Twilight Princes
Hiromasa Shikata (Director of ALBW and TFH) - First worked on Ocarina of Time
Yugo Hayashi (Director of Star Fox Zero) - First worked on Twilight Princess
Yoshiaki Koizumi - First worked on Link to the Past

Yusuke Amano was in Special thanks for Four Swords Adventure. Unsure of what he did but that era was weird and the special thanks was also where they could put in extra debuggers, testers and give thanks to the Super Mario Club.

Amano was a debugger before moving up to Director.