I feel the same. Its not that the Wii U and 3DS didn't offer their own great experience but the company culture in the last has been of one not resting on their laurels. Its feels like they're fighting for relevance again and the last time that happened was 2005-7

Kind of, maybe.

Splatoon is new for them and Zelda looks like they actually studied what was working elsewhere in the industry. They also seem to finally understand that the "make a console and the third-parties will come" philosophy no longer works (and hasn't worked in many years).

On the other hand, in terms of Nintendo software, the Switch is looking like the Wii U version 2. Wouldn't surprise me if 90%+ of the titles they release will be franchise continuations.

So, the jury is still out.

I honestly don't really see how much has changed.

The Switch looks like a basic evolution of the Wii U concept. If you told me 3 years ago "evolve the Wii U concept", Switch would pretty much be exactly it.

The problem is "hardware innovations" can't happen often. There's a reason why we have a wheel and not a new version of the wheel every 10 years ... "reinventing the wheel" is hard.

But they still make fun games so if you enjoy those then that's fine.

Nintendo likely is never going to again be the company they were in the 80s/90s. That was their peak IMO overall, Wii/DS era was more of fad driven bubble that popped but they were legit in the 80s/90s. But they still make great games today that are fun to play, so really I just enjoy the games.

The company is always going to make bizarre/baffling decisions, I think most people are basically just going to accept that.

zelda has combat,.. like actual combat not just press "A" to win combat so there is that. but one game i want to play a decade does little to make me care about nintendo. nintendo is so protectionist/buget concience with their games these days i just can't care about them.

maybe it's just me,.. i can't look at a title like mk8 and see it as a revolutionary innovation to the kart racer genre that so many nintendo fans see. "gravity" a small twist on a decades age old game. don't get me wrong,.. i'm sure the game is fun but just don't see much to be excited for from nintendo games these days.

You forgot nostalgia, gimmick and casual.

No Nintendo Bingo for you.

Amiibo, Splatoon, Zelda BotW, Pokemon Go, Switch trailer, NES Mini, Pokemon Sun and Moon, Super Mario Run, full Switch reveal..

do people really think that? cause thats wild and Iike 8 but innovative, nope. There hasnt been a true innovative MK in a while imho

This is such a bullshit line of thinking.

1) These are not direct wiiu ports. They are not "HD" versions. They all have a ton of new functionality based on what is seen from just the sample shots. This is not taking SMB64 and putting it on a new console. This is taking a game, putting in all existing DLC and adding a bunch more content that couldn've been its own separate DLC all while launching what is a superior platform.

2) You people weren't bitching when MSony did this for 100% of their games for the first couple years of this gen. Every single big game of PS360 was new-gen-ified and every single game launched in the first two years (maybe 1.5?) was a game built on last-gen middleware and then scaled up. Literally all of these games were just better visuals. No new content, no enhancements... nothing. Here, have this same box I sold you two years ago, but I polished the glossy finish.

NS is getting some launch year greatness. Lots of solid content and most of which we haven't even see yet. 

I've seen some people saying Nintendo has a hard time getting games out. Here's why that'll change with the Switch... they won't be trying to support two systems at once. All their software output is going to one console, not two.