They usually go a year and a half or so from announcement -> release of a new console (or at least they did for Wii/Wii U). I figure they announce NX in 2016 and release it in 2017. That'd give the Wii U a 5-year run which is pretty much average (though it feels like below average because the last console gen was longer than usual).
parax that's true, but i think the wii u has been such a failure that they might rush the nx out. otoh it would certainly make more sense for the nx to come out in 2017, since zelda is assumedly coming out in autumn 2016. that would give them time to do a new 3d mario game too, which the wii u is still missing. somehow i can't imagine them not doing one, but maybe they'll actually skip a console.
Twilight Princess was great. I'll grant that it didn't bring as much new stuff to the table as most Zelda games (and suffered from coming out at the same time as Phantom Hourglass, which did), but in two categories it was the best Zelda to date:
* Combat. Some actual challenge for the first time since the NES, and swordplay with some variety to it. Nothing in Ocarina was interesting to fight and everything in WW was too easy (those A button attacks... come on). TP fixed both. And yes, waggle went on to be terrible in a million other games, but in this one it worked.
* Scale. Let me rephrase that: SCALE. Everything was huge. The horse actually mattered because you had so much ground to cover. The dungeons were like whole Metroid Prime areas. The bosses! The places you went! Man, I want to play it again just remembering that feeling of scope.
For that stuff I can forgive any number of get-the-fish-for-the-cat quests. Well, okay, two.
Also, since this is a Zelda thread now, know how the trendy thing these days is to claim LttP was the last truly great one? Here's a guy arguing that even LttP was a mistake and only the first two were good.
[ED: Oh. I was too slow and now it's a Mario thread.]
o i missed that part, yeah it wasn't challenging at all. i just liked how tons of weapons could be used to do damage, and those sword techniques were neat when i could pull them off
fucking wiimote, can't wait to try it with a real controller
The thing with the parry attacks in Wind Waker is that yeah it made fights even easier, but the animations were cool and it made fights feel more dynamic and fluid and look great and fun and oh man I love fighting Dark Nuts in that game and it made the Ganon fight so ridiculously cool.