Nintendo: core gamers can`t never be satisfied

[Erik Aston]

I guess I don't know enough about Phantom Hourglass to try and keep going back and forth on it.

I would mention that sheer sales are not a measure of the true impact a game has, and while generally the "pivotal" games we're discussing will sell in excess of 5 million copies, many games that sell that much don't have a lot of impact.

Regarding Zelda again... In terms of the "lore" of the series, the highest regarded games in the series (LttP, OoT) added something to the overall story of the series when they arrived. Most games since Ocarina have just sort of been floating around, at best making reference to the fact that they come after Ocarina. Their stories are entirely self-contained.

"Surprising new experience" doesn't go the whole way to describe what needs to be done. The "surprising new experience" has to be significant to the audience, and to do that, it has to make sense in the context of the series. That's why an "innovative" game like the Four Swords games, and straightforward games like the Oracle games, both met with the same fairly indifferent responce. They were both just seemingly unimportant sidestories.

Along with Four Swords, the other best example of Nintendo focusing on innovation and ignoring the context of the series is the DK Bongo games. However, for non-content-oriented series, you could also list Wii Music.

And yes, I'm trying to think of a good way to say what I'm trying to say with "content-oriented." Malstrom has been using the word "mythos" but I don't think that's quite right either. But I do think that the player is just looking for something fundamentally different. For a "surprising new experience" to be significant to them, at SOME level it has to be something dealing with a story or at least escapism, and not with something practical or social. Of course, all games are actually experienced at the content level.