I don't hate Nintendo at all, and I don't feel betrayed by them either. Every game their studios make has been made with time, care, and a commitment to excellence. Most of them have the ability to be instantly accessible to literally anyone, with incredibly difficult challenge for those who want it.
They don't insult the player. The games that are online don't have online passes. No crazy DRM schemes. No DLC out the ass, or microtransactions. Games aren't released with day one patches and can be beaten on day one. No bait and switch or smoke and mirrors, you always know what you're going to get.
Outside of the third party games that do exist, there's a certain magic to the games that people seem to either get or don't. Although they carry similar names, almost every new title offers a significant jump forward that plays with the new controller or offers a more advanced pure gameplay leap compared to the last one (not talking NSMB here). I refuse to accept that SMB3 is the same game as Super Mario World, is the same as Mario 64 is the same as Galaxy. They each take a character many people know and love (mostly from some people's earliest memories of entering this medium) and pushes forward what can be done from a pure gameplay standpoint.
If all you want out of gaming is the stories and the providing of a range of emotions the way movies do, I'm sure everything I'm talking about isn't your thing. But there's still many of us who get a big dumb grin on our face as we traverse seemingly impossible obstacles and execute masterful timing in Mario, or explore a strange alien world in Metroid. Nintendo is interested in what is possible with game mechanics themselves, and how the medium can be improved regarding player skill, timing, interaction with the game, and all of the art and characters that exist to provide pure glee. I bought Galaxy 2 because the first one was a giant dopamine shot and I couldn't wait to see what new ideas Miyamoto's team had for the Galaxy world.
Actually, I made myself sad by realizing how old Miyamoto really is. Nintendo, and all of us, whether you support his work or not, is going to have a crushing loss to the imagination and pure happiness in our medium when he leaves us.
Anyway, that's my say on Nintendo. I understand that different people want different things out of this hobby, and I understand that not everyone wants the kind of experiences that Nintendo offers. It certainly is a different world than when I was growing up though, when everyone got a 64 so they could huddle around a 20'' to play 4 player Goldeneye and be little "core" gamers. Different strokes and all that.
