Ah the Zelda chronology.  What exactly happened after the events of Ocarina?  How could Twilight Princess and Wind Waker both exist within the same universe?  For years, the chronological storyline of the Zelda franchise has been a topic of hot debate amongst fans of the franchise.  The generally held belief for the franchise (before today, at least) held to the concept that the Zelda timeline split after the events of Ocarina of Time into two separate storylines - one which led to Twilight Princess, the other to Wind Waker and eventually the original Legend of Zelda.

Today, those debates are laid to rest.  Nintendo has released the "Hyrule Historia", an art book/encyclopedia of all thing Zelda.  Within the encyclopedia, an official timeline has finally been put to ink.  To be honest, not only is it an unexpected answer to this debate, but an odd and honestly questionable one.  However, this is coming straight from the horses mouth, so what follows is the official storyline.

Four games in the series come before the "time split".  In order, they are:

Skyward Sword, Minish Cap, Four Swords, Ocarina of Time. 

Okay, that makes sense.  What doesn't make sense is that rather than the generally accepted two-way split after Ocarina of Time, Nintendo has revealed that the series actually splits into THREE separate timelines.  The first of these timelines follows the basic ending of Ocarina, where Link is returned to his youth.  The games following this timeline are:

Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, Four Swords Adventures.

Again, makes sense.  Second is the "saved future" that Link leaves behind after sealing Ganon in the Sacred Realm in the time Adult Link inhabits in Ocarina.  The games that follow are:

Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks.

This leaves a rather large group of games out of the picture.  This brings up a third, alternate future from Ocarina of Time.......one where LINK FAILS.  Thats right, Nintendo is saying that it is cannon that Link was defeated in Ocarina in this storyline.  Quite an interesting, if controversial, choice by Nintendo.  The games that follow this timeline are:

A Link to the Past, Oracle(both of them), Link's Awakening, The Legend of Zelda, Adventures of Link.

This really doesn't seem to work for me.  It almost feels like a random excuse to just slam all of the remaining games together so it, well, just works.  Either way, this is now accepted cannon for the franchise.  I'm more curious to hear from YOU guys and see what you think about this explanation of the franchise's chronology.