Nintendo approaches this issue in a completely different way. They don't create a "plot", instead, they create settings, or universes, if you prefer that word. In pen and paper RPGs, you have core books (D&D Player/DM/Monster Manual books), then you have books that give you different universes or settings (Dragonlance, Planescape, Forgotten Realms, Rokugan) all of these designed so the DM can come up with a plot using the rules and the different universes. Those are more or less similar to what Nintendo does. And then you have the novels, like the works of R.R. Salvatore and all that stuff, which is what other developers tend to do.
Universes/settings, I believe, have a much bigger impact; mainly because there is plenty of stuff left to the player's imagination to fill up. Zelda games, for example, don't really have an incredibly complex plot. Instead, they resemble the kind of folk story that's told through several generations, with each generation adding details that make their own version unique.
Then again, some people do not play D&D, but do enjoy Salvatore's novels, which is perfectly fine. That novel approach, I believe, is how other developers tend to work. Then there are developers that create universes/settings AND complex plots, but, when you think about it, there aren't that many of those. I mean, there are exceptions, a bunch of them, actually, but the overwhelming majority of other companies' games take place here on Earth (past, present, future, post apocalyptic, etc, but still on Earth... And even if they do take place in outer space, they tend to feel pretty Earthly... Or maybe I should even dare to say Western culture-centric.)
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