People have the wrong idea of what a game that is art is. A game that's art has one sole creative vision. It's a game that's made for the developer first, people second. A game that isn't art is made for people first and has little influence from the developer's creativity. All that box-checking that the likes of EA, Activision, and Microsoft do to make games for a certain audience that we label as "soulless," that's what Nintendo has admitted to doing.
It's not really a surprise, since they've been putting all their developers' ideas into boxes since pretty early on. Starfox Adventures is a result of this, most Kirby games as well. The fact that the new Link to the Past game has a chalk-outline Link stapled in is a result of this. The man who works on most of the Zelda games wants really badly to make his own games, but Nintendo keeps boxing all of his ideas to IPs they know people like.
They're doing the same thing that we attack other publishers for doing--the only difference is the audience they're pandering toward is us.
The original Mario is art; the original Zelda is art. These games came from a time when Nintendo had no idea what people wanted, so they made the games they liked first and hoped to find an audience. Nowadays, though, Nintendo knows what a "Nintendo game" is, and they do everything they can to recreate that experience again and again.
@stan_boyd We all tie ourselves up with things other than ourselves--whether it be a console or TV show or restaurant or clothing store. I'm more commenting on the air of "I'm more highly evolved" smuggness that a lot of people use to distance themselves from these things :P
Cue the legion of commenters going, "Yup, that explains everyone except me. I'm far too superior a human being than to be swayed by such silly little things."
Yup, selling a super-powerful console at a great price, allowing you to trade, sell, and lend your games, and supporting indie developers whole-heartedly is totally consumer unfriendly. You have them pegged with their illusions and all.
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