Here is a outsider perspective on the matter, there is too much fanboysm going on and, as a notorious Sony fanboy and all around shallow individual myself, this is my take on the Nintendo importance, which, as I see, is vital to the gaming industry:

1 - They saved the american gaming industry once, this alone make them light years more important than all the others.

All these western companies trying to shove FPSs down our throats would not even exist if it was not because of Nintendo and their iconic NES and Mario mania in the 80´s. Their games are their legacy, Mario, Zelda, Metroid, all games that teach gamers to expect quality instead of disapointment.

2 - Most of their haters are not that bright, with some notable exceptions, most of Nintendo haters are narrow minded at best.

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.

If you do not get it, you are probably not the sharpest pencil in the box: when you play your FPS, you are pretending to be a soldier, this not diferent than pretending to be a magical plumber or a boy elf in green, it is a fun ilusion altogether, but it is suppose to be fun and vide games ARE toys, meant to be played after a hard day of work.

3 - If you do not work, you do not value your play time.

Nintendo is now a victm of the casual shooter gamer mentality.

These CofD, Halo fans will not be playing video games forever, they will drop the hobby as soon as the military, testosterone-filled FPS craze goes away, and it will, just like Guitar Hero did.
Nintendo will endure and survive, their haters will not. They will get out of gaming as soon as they discover girls or something like that, real gamers do it for ever, even after married or having kids, but they have no ilusions about the importance of gaming: it is a toy, they do it for fun, for relaxing.

4 - They did not jumped in the FPS and online multiplayer bandwagon. Nintendo gets it, it is more important to be cool than to be in the fashion, the fashion followers today are the goofy looking people of tomorrow.

The WiiU may not win this gen, but this do not matter, it will turn a profit and that is the only thing that matters to a company survival.

When the next stupid craze gets here, we will again have discussions why Nintendo is not relevant and Zelda should look like Skrym, which is such a dumb idea that makes my head hurts.

If Nintendo followed these dumb western people ideas, they would have gone bankrupt a long time ago, thank god for Shigeru, thank god for Iwata.

OK, first of all, video games are not toys. A toy by definition is for imaginative play with no goal. In fact, this smug "video games are toys" rebuttal that's started circling the internet to try to counter people who take video games "too seriously" is both irritating and incorrect.

This is how it works for all interactive play. There are 5 forms of interactive play, Toy, Puzzle, Sport, Competition, and Game. Here's how you decipher which is which.

1. Is the item/object used in a form of play with no objective or goal?
Yes = It's a Toy. No = Move on to question 2.

2. Are there any other people or agents of interaction (including AI) in this challenge?
No = It's a Puzzle. Yes = Move on to question 3.

3. Is your form of play one of physical prowess in which there is a winner and loser?
Yes = It's a Sport. No = Move on to question 4.

4. Are you allowed to interfere with the progress of the other agents, or vice versa?
No = It's a Competition. Yes = It's a Game.

So, no, a video game is not a toy. Can people please stop saying this now as though it's some kind of trump card argument to make your opponent look petty and demeaning their arguments puerile because "it's just a toy, you're arguing over a toy". Not only is that argument facile and insulting, it's also wrong.

 They saved the industry in America... Europe and Japan were doing just fine.

lol 'they will drop it as the fps craze goes away'
it still lasted longer than the motion controls craze

This is getting sad

Fixed, thanks =D

You gotta calm down buddy, you get irritated outta of almost nothing.

These are all toys in my book:

A man nicknamed FPS_Dominator would find that funny.

So, you think they are not?

this was the most beautyful thing i've seen all day :'(