I think that works for Mario and, up until recently, the Metroid games, but what's stopping Nintendo from adding vocie acting in Zelda? They had dialogue for the characters since the very beginning. Would it really change your preception of the cast in Zelda games if their dialogue was spoken? The only way that would be is if Link had a voice.

Yes and no. There are positives and negatives that come with full voice acting in games. For Nintendo I don't think any of the main franchises should see voice acting. In new IP that have never been done before yah possibly include some voice acting but Nintendo needs to be very strategic in when and where they include voice acting.

If you intend for the series to last more then three games, no don't voice act. Why? Because you will likely need a different actor four or so games in. Actors are a liability they don't necessarily stay with you forever, say rather then hiring a professional voice actor you use some of your staff members who you believe will remain with the company. Yah that makes it more reliable but say one dies or leaves your studio, you are screwed. The consumers get a voice in their heads and they relate your product with that voice, if suddenly you need to change the voice and you don't use exactly the right one you can screw your franchise up.

Also some characters are just better off not talking. Do we need Mario to be able to speak a couple dozen lines? No we really don't the game play really requires very little actual talk. Zelda could use actual voice acting, but what would the right voice be to match Link's character and its traits? Right now with no voice your head makes it up, you have an image of what his voice should sound like as does everybody else. You give him a voice actor and that actor is amazing, well at least 20% of the Zelda fans will be like "Hey Link shouldn't sound like that"

In the end fans don't know what each other wants, that's the problem. They also would love voice acting but if the actor changed every two or so games and the voice changed they wouldn't be all that supportive.

Example read Game Informer's recent banter about DK's voice in MK7. "Why, Nintendo? What was wrong with the big ape's old voice? What did we do to deserve this? I don't understand!" That is exactly what happens when you start tampering with a loved characters voice.

If Nintendo was to use voice acting it should be for a smaller series like say Uncharted was or GoW or another three part series spanning 5 years or so. This way Nintendo can sign a three game contract with the actor guaranteeing he isn't going anywhere. Then he can hope the actor doesn't die. If everything goes well Nintendo could create a cinematic master piece with voice acting.

But you see Nintendo is usually looking longer term. When they create an IP they aren't looking to make 3 games maybe 4 and then quit. They want to continue growing the franchise for decades to come.

Eventually competitors might force Nintendo to start adding voice. it will become extremely difficult to keep using only text while your competitor releases voice acted trilogy after voice acted trilogy. Lets face it Nintendo doesn't want the problems Hollywood has where your product relies on a voice actor. They don't want people saying "This game that took Nintendo 5 years to make with an amazing sound track beautiful graphics and great plot just isn't as good as the last game because Link's voice sucks".

Outside of the characters you're playing, it would be nice to have the world around you talking & more alive.

But I can live without it, since I've become accustomed to it since I started playing Nintendo games on the Super Nintendo all those years ago.

That's probably only what we would get if Zelda became a comedy cartoon from the 80's. I don't think that is what Nintendo would want.

Everyone seems to be pointing to the awful Zelda games that we're supposed to pretend to have forgotten about, but what about Mario Sunshine? The voice acting in that is terrible as well, and that was actually a Nintendo game.

Does japan not understand that a silent protagonist can exist in a game with voice acting. Dead space 1 did it just fine and so did Metroid Prime 3.

All voice acting sucked during the time period that Zelda cartoon was released. All nintendo would have to do is hire Funimation to do the voice acting and keep Link silent.

I didn't think the voice acting was that bad. Everyone sounded like the sound bites that come from the other games.

I say no full voice acting for mario or especially Zelda. 

giving Link a voice would indeed give Link his own personality and would separate the player from the character.  I do like as someone else mentioned the little whimsical sounds that midna and fi have as "speach" but I don't think I would want it taken any further.  I also liked playing metroid other m, but could have done without all the cut scenes and story as well as Samus constant ramblings.

Nolan North of course!!! /s

   This has potential if voice recognition technology really improves. Right now, even Microsoft's Speech-To-Text software on windows 7 sucks.