I can't believe someone could be so desperate to rationalize their consumer habits that they would question the key source of innovation in this industry -- bigger, better, more functional, and cheaper hardware. Nintendo has provided you with vastly inferior hardware by an objective and unbiased standard -- even if you value the product, swallow this fact with a grain of salt and move on. Please do not try to construct counter-intuitive arguements that question the functionality and nessessity of better hardware. We have always wanted, appreciated, and demanded better hardware at a lower price. Nintendo fans only refute this most basic demand when they are forced to reconcile Nintendo's unethical surface. The facts boil and simmer in their minds until they redefine their standards to make sense, and still appreciate, the products they are offered. Nintendo only maintains its fanbase through a subtle, unethical, and terrible marketing strat that completely butchers everything we know and love about gaming. Please read my post on pleasure to understand why franchises should logically die out. Nintendo franchises have become so intellectually dead, pointless, and supported by marketing icons that they virtually have no other equal in the industry. People, especially gamers, will buy anything if nostalgia, base pleasure, and marketing merits the purchase.
Please refer to my blog post on pleasure for a full and logical critique of the whole "gaming is about FUN" arguement. You forget that fun is also constructed on the validity of ideas, and that people should place more emphasis on the depth and complexity of those ideas. Of course we value simple and "fun" things, but it does not inflate the value of a simple thing, nor does it define or set limitations for the function of an entertainment medium.
FoamingPanda
I fail to see the use of the word unethical as to describe Nintendo's marketing strategy. I also don't see the issue on franchises. The only reason that franchises are bad is a direct result of publishers. Also, if I go pick up Zelda:TP, is it because I just want to play it to be reminded of OOT or that the cover art looks great. I highly doubt it. The reason why I'm going to go get it is because it has set a high standard for how to make great games and there should be no reason for me to believe that this game will be any different.
How can a series become intellectually dead? If Nintendo is become as such, what other company or console is making intellectualy alive games? The only games that truely press ones mind anymore are games purposefully meant to do so. Ironicly, Nintendo came out with Brain Age and Big Brain Academy to support intellectual growth. Has anyone else done this, at least recently?
You can go on and on all you want trying to disprove that people are actually having fun and having great experiences with Nintendo still today in a fresh new way and NOT based off of nostalgia, but at the end of the day it comes down to personal prefrence. If you don't like to swim, get out of the pool. If you don't like Nintendo, don't buy their products. Just because you don't like them or their way of making games, doesn't mean that they are tearing apart the very foundation of gaming, creating intellectually inferior gamers, mocking us with extensions of series, or over simplfying the game making formulas. If you like to have fun, this now primitive, hated, disgusting thing to have, stick with Nintendo.
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