They saved the industry once and did not jumped in the FPS bandwagon, this alone make them light years more important than all the others;
However, I get why the kids hate them, they have this ilusion that video games are not toys, which is a lie, and that playing games is a serious thing, which is stupid.
These CofD, Halo fans will not be playing video games forever, they will drop the hobby as soon as the FPS craze goes away, and it will, just like Guitar Hero did.
Nintendo will endure and survive, their haters will not.