[Rapzid]

They did something amazing that at least I had never heard of in the game industry. In one of their making-of videos released today they said that every so often everybody would take a week break(at the same time) to play the game. This served as a check-in of sorts to see what everyone else was working on and to get company-wide exposure and feedback on each other's work.

It shows. I played the entire game through use sleep mode on the switch between sessions. Not a single game breaking or fun breaking bug. The consistency throughout is phenomenal... Well, the people work on Death Mountain killed it; looks better than the other areas IMHO.

[Agentlien]

I also saw the GDC video where they talked about this and it really resonated with me.

Where I work we are constantly reminded to spend time just playing the game and the whole studio (120+ people) regularly gather in the main meeting area, watching as someone plays through a mission.

What was mentioned in this video, however, is on a whole different level and it sounds amazing.

[Rapzid]

I got the impression from the making-ofs that they jumped into the deep end as far as innovation. Not just from a gameplay and design perspective, but from a process and company culture perspective as well. I get the sense that a lot of process was cultural and stagnant. However, when the opportunity arose to throw more change after good they jumped on it and made some very interesting progress. I can't help but get a strong impression that the experience of developing BOTW has had a transformative effect on Nintendo. I'm also getting those vibes from the Switch and double-down strategy on indie devs and turn-key game engines; if not already certainly over the life cycle of the system.

This particular process seems to have arisen from Nintendo's need to control quality. We've seen this in effect before with many games, but Metroid Prime and Retro Studios comes to mind. With a Warren Buffett like eye for potential Nintendo pulled on Retro to make Prime, and through sure will for quality helped guide their efforts and the final product into the amazeballs results of Metroid Prime. That need for uncompromising quality control, coupled with the challenges of a MASSIVE game(certainly more massive than anything they have undertaken) led them to try out this process that comes with obvious financial downsides. In the end, they are rightly satisfied with the results. Inspiring.