I don't see how the 100th (third person)shooter of this generation, a 20 year old controller design, only upgraded hardware every new generation, surprises you more than the masterpiece that is Galaxy and the new games Kid Icarus, many eShop games, Xenoblade/The Last Story/Pandora's Tower, and especially the games X and Pikmin 3 which look beautiful, fun and unique at the same time. Also the gamepad should surprise you more than Gears of War 26, Killzone 300, Call of Duty^853.

well just saying, Earthbound coming to the virtual console finally, was a HUGE surprise for me.

Xenoblade Chronicles.

Clearly you haven't played XenoBlade Chronciles.....

or I suppose Fire Emblem: Awakening is not a huge step for the franchise.

Let's forget about Pikmin 3 or Monolith Project X

Nintendo is capable of surprising, and will continue to suprise. Yes there are is a big focus on sequels and remakes now, but Miyamoto himself said he want's more new IP's. It's going to happen, Nintendo always surprised people every 5 years or so. With Wii, there were 5 main surprises. The Wii itself with Wii Sports, Skyward Sword, Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, XenoBlade Chronciles & Project Rainfall games, and I would count Donkey Konmg Country Returns/New Super Mario Bros. as a surprise too. That averages to 1 every 1.6 years, if you only look at console games.

Add DS/3DS surprises in the last 8 years like the 3DS system, Fire Emblem, Super Mario 3D Land, 3D Pokemon (X/Y), Black/White 2, all those Dragon Quest/FF remakes, Animal Crossing for DS, Brain Age, Metroid Prime and Resident Evil Revelations as big graphical pushes, etc, and Nintendo delivers one big surprisingly good experience every year.

It's not like Nintendo now has lost the ability to innovate, they never stopped inovvating, but people have continued to become skeptical. Believe me, when Wii came out, "core" gamers laughed. Who's laughing now when Wii has some of the best rated games (only topped by GTA IV), and it's the best selling 7th gen console.

You can say that about all the Mario games and its spinoffs too. There are fun and unique experiences on every platform. The rest is just your opinion. The controller doesn't really suprise either, maybe if it came out at the same time tablets became popular imo. Nintendo is the same as other companies, they'll use their popular franchises to make money and like any other company can suprise too.

It depends what you mean by surprise.

I was quite surprised by both the WW remake and LTTP style sequels. Could be wrong but I thought Nintendo had never remade a home console Zelda on a new home console. Yes they’ve ported OoT, MQ and MM from N64 to GC/Wii but isn’t this the first actual remake. Even the OoT ‘remake’ for 3DS was from home console to handheld and it was more of a polishing up and adding 3D.

The LTTP sequel was less surprising but only because it was hinted at last year, had they not hinted I would never have suspected. In fact if anything I was suspecting a remake of LTTP through the E-Shop not a sequel.

Then you have things like Pokemon B/W2... did you see that coming? How many people thought Pokemon Grey would be next?

If however you mean the re-releasing of the same franchises over and over then I think you’re right, they really aren’t that surprising. But whats Nintendo to do? Nintendo is the franchises it has built up and I love each new addition. And there’s always the odd curve ball like Kid Icarus Uprising and Nintendoland.

Besides I love remakes :)

Nintendo didn't make those but Project X counts as first party since they bought the compay. Much like Microsoft they leave the outside creativity to third parties. They keep first party business the same as usual. Make new games and reskin them with old characters as a selling point.

That was surprising to me.

also Yoshi's Yarn game looks also totally different then Kriby's Epic Yarn. People love to bitch about the same characters and forget the art styel, aestethics, gameplay mechanics. And still nobody bitches about the first party games from other companies.

Your definition of "original" makes it seem like no game past the first game ever created can be considered original, because there's always something that's being copied.  Tsk tsk.  

You're basically saying "Derp, this game requires eyes to see it, therefore it is unoriginal.  Just a copy of pong."