I kind of disagree here. I find that Nintendo innovates more on their core franchises than most companies out there. Or at least I find more innovation on their games than I find in the new CoD, Halo or FIFA (talking about other IPs that get iterated over and over again). Third party support is something they have to work more, but they have some interesting things coming down (Rayman, Bayonetta 2... Not enough though).
I find those series fairly boring, too. I did temporarily forget about Rayman and Bayonetta being pulled up for Nintendo, but as you yourself say they aren't enough. And EA and Ubisoft, basically the two biggest and most-prolific third-party publishers, have effectively stated that the WiiU holds no interest to them. And however well-made the first-party games are, they aren't enough to keep a console and game company afloat in this day and age.
I find hard to say Nintendo hasn't innovated when from my point of view the Wii and the Wiimote were the ones that forced Microsoft and Sony to bring Kinect and Move to live. The DS was another great example of hardware innovation. Probably they haven't found something so successful with the WiiU and 3DS hardware features (a little too early to tell, but looks like it), but honestly, repeating the Wii/DS success was kind of doomed effort.
The Wiimote did push motion control, and it did very well for Nintendo. But it was also gimmicky. There were only a tiny handful of games outside Nintendo's stable that actually did anything worthwhile with it. But as they moved forward to the WiiU, look how poorly it has fared in the market. It's costing Nintendo an insane amount to keep trying to save the thing, as it simply is not moving sales enough. It might be helped by some major first-party announcements, but they simply haven't come. That may change with Gamescom right here and the Tokyo Game Show next month, but it isn't enough right now. And Nintendo needs
something right now.
And look how Sony has pulled back on the Move business. Microsoft is pushing Kinect 2.0 with the XBOne, but it hasn't exactly been met with great enthusiasm. Motion control may be considered the future of gaming, but it still receives a lukewarm reception, thanks to the current limitations of the technology.
I find that there are far more gameplay/design differences between Mario 64/Sunshine/Galaxy than FIFA 12/13/14 or Gears of War 1/2/3. Maybe it's just me, but that's how I feel when I play the next Mario/Zelda/Metroid game vs the feeling in other big IPs out there.
I find them all to be sadly alike. Don't get me wrong, they're still excellent games. They're just really cookie-cutter, in my view. Innovation is a hard thing to pull off nowadays, as there is so much out there and so much history -- I get it.
Mario is still fun, but the newer releases have been more like shiny retreads of 64, with some new toys sprinkled in here and there as experiments. Zelda has followed the same structure for years and years -- go through themed dungeons (and there
must always be a Water Temple), collect a new item from each in order, use that item to defeat the boss of the dungeon. Metroid has probably seen the most change in recent years. Some good, some ill. Other M was a travesty that should not have happened. But the Prime series was pretty good, cool stuff. But the studio behind Prime (Retro) has since lost several of its major people, and are working on the new Donkey Kong Country Returns games, themselves really a redesign of the DKC games from the SNES era. (Let's also not forget that Nintendo appears to look at Metroid like their red-headed stepchild. Zelda got a huge Anniversary Celebration, but Metroid got nothing for its 25th Anniversary.
)
Yes, they add a little bit here and there in an attempt to freshen up their games. But to me, it feels like far too little to justify the expense of buying into their consoles now.
At the same time, I'm not enthused about plenty of the sequel releases coming up. I find most of the FPS genre to be stagnant, and I'm not a big multiplayer fan. Most of the innovation I look for is in concept, characters, and storytelling. Nintendo certainly has their long-standing concepts nailed down, but they don't branch out from them much. It seems to me that they are scared to take risks. Their characters are semi-defined... through their history, not through any real exposition. As for storytelling, the only series that really does much of anything with it is Zelda. And that is still stuck in the days of no voice acting, making emotion far harder to convey. They manage it, but they do so in a counter-intuitive manner.
Take a second and look back at BioShock 1. While the action design wasn't a revolution, the characters, setting, and story were a breath of fresh air. You still have the silent protagonist, but the other characters were brought to life through their writing and voice acting. Bioshock Infinite was, action-wise, pretty much "been there, done that." The rift mechanics were a neat addition, but nothing mind blowing. Where Infinite really stood out was the story and characters.
Now for an ongoing series with those yearly releases: Assassin's Creed. Each time, they've tried to add something new to the mix and polish older stuff. In each stage of the Ezio set, new mechanics were added in, some successful and some not. But they were willing to take the risks. Now AC4: Black Flag is taking a very different route compared to its forebears. They're willing to attempt different things, so they have my attention. It may pay off or it may not. But what matters to me is that they are trying something new.
Sequels and series-based games don't have to be so cookie-cutter. The apparent choice of Nintendo to leave things as they are, in my eyes, makes me far less interested in them as a company.
Sorry to the OP for helping send this so off-topic. But hopefully it will be helpful in your decision, anyway.
