[Professor S]

Everyone has pretty much stated everything you could possibly say Nintendo did wrong, and its tough considering how much Nintendo is dominating the industry right now.

But I think Aladuf has hit the nail on the head for me...

Nintendo has abandoned the hardcore gamer. I'm not saying that was a bad business move, it obviously wasn't, but its one I have a hard time accepting with my personal game preferences.

I love literary games. To me gameplay and gaphics are avenues to entrench a player's psyche into a new, strange world where the fantastic is possible and the mundane is never tolerated. Books engage your mind. Movies add the eyes and ears to the experience.

But games...

Games can fully exploit all of you senses to make not merely an observer of epic storytelling, but make you a PART of it. Mass Effect is a perfect example of this and to date is my favortie game of all time, by far, and Ive played almost every major game released since PONG (benefit of being an old man).

Nintendo no longer cares for the advancement of games to art. Instead, they happily tread in the sandbox of children's toys and basic, fun platform, puzzle and kinetic games. They are experts of the superficial experience, and thats ok, it makes them a lot of money and a lot of people love casual gaming. They saw a need, and filled it. Good for them.

But me...

I need to play a game and feel enriched for having experienced it. I prefer my games to be more Pablo Picasso than Jim Lee. I felt that the industry was moving in that direction last gen, with games like KOTOR, Shadow of the Colossus, Oni and Okami. So I suppose a little of me is bitter that Nintendo seems to have bucked that beautiful trend.

Now those ypes of games seem even more few and far between, so I'll wile away my time with replaying Mass Effect, my strategy games (insert story here!) and Warhammer 40k.

Bah.