Sigh.
Yes, this is obvious...
Except... After Twilight Princess Nintendo made an announcement saying it would be the last 'traditional' zelda game.
Therefore, in light of that fact this is news, because it contradicts their earlier statement.
And notice how in an industry where any good idea gets cloned ad infinitum. (eg. Doom leading to 1001 copycats of the basic premise), clones of Zelda are almost non-existent? (the only one that comes to mind being Okami)
And I would say Nintendo does create new IP, it's just that nobody cares, and it's not iconic in the same sense as their older stuff. (Wii sports? Brain Training? Nintendogs? - That's all material that has nothing to do with their classic characters.
How about pikmin? No? - The point is, people like to complain about the reuse of old settings and characters, while ignoring the new stuff.
And honestly, if Nintendo made a new platform game that was using different characters, but played the same as Mario does, what would be the point?
If you're going to remake a mario game, you might as well be honest about it and use mario in it.
If on the other hand you make something that's based around different gameplay, you'd presumably change the IP that goes with it too.)