Seriously, Nintendo is not THAT Important

[Mythmaker1]

Mr Khan said:

Mythmaker1 said:

 

Just for reference, with regards to point 3, does history refer to sales, reception, or endurance?

I'm not as conversant with the Film industry as I'd like to be, but I'd think that Dreamworks would actually be in a pretty good position to fill in for Pixar, at least, though Disney is a much more difficult beast because they're such a far-reaching conglomerate. Their family films are actually largely overshadowed by their partnership with Marvel in recent years. I'd actually say someone like Warner Brothers would be in a good position to take over for them, given the way they've been working with DC the last decade or so.

In terms of the gaming industry, Metroid and Kirby are iconic, but not really irreplaceable. Their releases are infrequent enough and at the lower end, sales wise, that they wouldn't leave as much of a void. Mario and Zelda, however, are different, thought he latter doesn't really define its genre anymore. Zelda is an institution, but there are a lot of third-person medieval action games with puzzle elements. Its important more because of its active fanbase, rather than its actual importance as an institution (only supposing here, the precedent doesn't really exist). It would definitely affect the industry, but probably not in an immediate, business sense.

Mario is probably the only one that really sticks, but I think a lot of the way other publishers neglect the genre is because Mario has a stranglehold on it. Everyone knows you can't compete with Mario, so no one tries. Yet look at all of the indie-platforming games that have flooded the market in recent years, outside of that competition. For a couple of years, there might be a void, but I don't expect it would have serious long-term consequences. It's sort of like World of Warcraft. If WoW fell tomorrow, just about every company would leap at the chance to take its place.

As fara s things go, you're response is probably the strongest rebuttal to my argument, and I can't write it off. I don't think I really agree with it, but it's a hard nut to crack without more research on my part, I think.

I was going to put a line in about Dreamworks, but didn't want to ramble. Dreamworks has some moments of brilliance, but they are often too focused on pop-culture referencing for their works to really stand out in the long term (this is what really dragged down the Shrek series as it went on). They are derivative more often than they should be, despite the talent they obviously have.

Are there a lot of third person medieval action games with puzzle elements? Prince of Persia is more of a platformer, Okami's not coming back, Medieval, too, more of a platformer (still wish Sony would push it more). The Last Guardian, but... yeah.

What you say about Dreamworks is true, but I think it's fair to say it's becoming less and less relevant (Shrek 4 was something like 4 years ago, afterall). 

If I'm understanding you right, there isn't anything that can come around and just replace Zelda. If so, I agree, but I don't see that anything needs to. Zelda itself is such a nebulous franchise in terms of mechanics that virtually nothing has remained consistent. Which is fine, but that's more or less what I mean when I say it's more of an institution; very little of practical substance remains constant except the prominent fanbase. I mean, if Zelda games stopped being made, it would suck, but it wouldn't really change the state of the industry as a whole, only a specific niche that, like most niches, would probably find something to fill it sooner or later.