It was not meant to be arrogant at all, only coherent with the idea that it does not make sense to compare games that are too different in genre.

As such, though the devs at Nintendo for example make the best pure platform games around, they don't fulfill the needs of lovers of driving or flight simulators, nor of lovers of RTS games. Thus, the only way someone could say "Nintendo makes the best games" period - and I always silently add a "for me" to such a statement - is if he/she's only interested into playing the kind of games Nintendo excels at.

People compare things in different genres all the time, making "best movie" lists, authors, etc.

Here's my issue with what you're saying: "lovers of driving or flight simulators" might be able to play and enjoy Nintendo platformers as well, because some (hopefully most) people have more interests than just one or two narrow genres.

Take one of my above examples--a best movie list.  I feel like what you're saying is is that however good The Godfather is, it's not necessarily going to satisfy someone who's really into Adam Sandler movies, therefore it's nonsense to compare them.

While I'm sure that it's sometimes true that someone will only be able to enjoy either The Godfather or The Wedding Singer, there are going to be other people who can enjoy both.  And there are also people who are going to be competent to compare them, despite the fact that they're different in many ways. 

Right, I get what you're saying.  Nintendo hasn't made the "best FPS," and the best FPS (whatever it is) is probably one of the best games of all time.  But where you lose me is when you have this idea that the only person who can conclude that Nintendo games are the best is somone "only" interested in playing Nintendo games.  I mean, some of the games that I've loved over the years include MGS, GoldenEye, Warcraft, Civ, Street Fighter II, Monkey Island, Final Fantasy & EA's NCAA series.  I like lots of different things, games, genres and styles.  And yet, I give credit to Nintendo for doing something special--a large number of their games in every generation stand out as being all-time classics.  It's not because I "only play Nintendo" or only like platformers or anything like that.

I'm not saying you can't disagree: you can think that these Nintendo games are overrated, or that other games are better.  That's fine.  But don't assume that someone who thinks Nintendo has made the best games is ignorant or uninterested in the competition... that's simply not true.

@donathos
I don't disagree, actually. I think that they are great developers, and that they managed to create many fabulous games. The first Metroid Prime, Super Mario 64, Zelda:OoT are among my favourite games.

But I'm pedantic when it comes to words, and harsh towards sweeping generalizations. I think that there's a big difference between "Nintendo makes the best games", "Nintendo makes some of the best games" and "Nintendo made my favorite games".

Game genres are so different between them that it's not even like comparing drama and comedy in movies. It's like comparing movies with documentaries, tv shows, and journalistic reports. Saying "National Geographic makes the best aired content" is quite naturally begging for an answer like "well, I suppose that's true if you're only into documentaries".
Or would you take it at face value that the person saying that is actually also a movie buff, but thinks that the comparison makes sense?

To put it into another light: saying that "Nintendo makes the best games" you're basically downplaying everything that Nintendo games lack and that some gamers need. You're saying that no matter how interesting the characters and story of Grim Fandango are, or how atmospheric and haunting Silent Hill 2 is, that's beaten by Nintendo because they perfected the art of the Mario platformer or Kart racing.
I'll respect your personal opinion on that, but I won't call you someone who really cares about point and click adventures or psychological horror games. If you truly were, you wouldn't have made such a cross-genre generalization.

I'm not sure I agree that the genre split in video games is bigger than in movies, but it's interesting to think about.

Honestly, I suspect that this generation is the first to really admit a wide gulf between game genre audiences--the supposed hardcore vs. casual split... before then, most gamers seemed fairly united, and someone who loved "video games" was expected to love any great game (with maybe a couple of exceptions).

I don't know.

I also don't know that I agree that you can't compare movies to documentaries, tv shows, etc.  I think that such comparisons depend on the criteria that are being used, and yeah, I suspect that there exists criteria general enough to make such comparisons intelligible.  (Could literature be compared to cinema?  Cinema to paintings?  Possibly so, though I certainly wouldn't have the expertise to do it.)

Well, to answer your question honestly, if someone said that National Geographic makes the best aired content, I would feel that this sounds like a thought-out position; doesn't seem like an off-hand comment.  "Aired content" means that they're inviting the comparison to movies; so yeah, I'd expect that they, themselves, would at least think the comparison makes sense.  As to whether they're a movie buff or not, I wouldn't make an assumption either way.

I also wouldn't dismiss their claim out of hand... maybe National Geographic does make the best aired content?  I would want to see if they could explain their claim, and then I'd assess it on its merits (or lack thereof).  If they say, "well, I just like it the most--I don't care much for fictionalized stuff," then I'd take it for what it was worth.  On the other hand, if they come up with some sort of reasonable means to compare documentaries with other media, it might be worth thinking about.

I disagree.  I don't think holding something up as "the best" means necessarily denigrating anything else.  When Miss Rhode Island wins the pageant, that doesn't mean you think Miss Arizona is ugly. 

To again bring us back to my movie example, if I were to claim that The Godfather is the greatest film of all time (which I wouldn't, but just for argument), I'm sure that someone could say that I'm downplaying everything that The Godfather lacks and that some moviegoers need.  That, no matter how comedic Adam Sandler is in his films, or how strange the direction of David Lynch, they're beaten by The Godfather because it has perfected the mob movie.

I suspect that really we're arguing about comparison as such--that you feel it doesn't hold to compare unlike things, while I would argue that comparison only makes sense because things are unlike.

And again, this is where I insist that you're mistaken.  Because someone thinks that Nintendo makes the best games, that does not necessarily mean that they have cool feelings about genres that Nintendo doesn't traditionally cater to, anymore than the man who loves The Godfather above all else can't also appreciate Sandler's films or David Lynch's.  People of eclectic taste exist, and so do people who can abstract and compare quality across genres.

I believe that a person can love FPSs and yet believe that Nintendo makes the best games.  Since you want to be "harsh towards sweeping generalizations," I feel I must point out that I believe to conclude otherwise--that anyone who thinks Nintendo makes the best games must not really be into FPSs, etc.,--is, itself, a sweeping generalization, and ought be dealt with harshly.

Yes, after a certain point, graphics have a diminishing return. We hit that curve hard with HD consoles, but the utility is still there, and we are always going to have those competitive developers who simply must make the best looking game out there, and so graphics will always increase, no matter how marginally.

I do wish graphics looked better than they do on HD consoles....but there is only so much better they can look, than say, Forza 3.

The next console wave will focus on differentiation via control scheme, and raw processing power. It will be all about "how many things can we get on screen at once" and "60 fps 1080p" instead of just "our graphics looks great."

The bad similitude with the beauty pageant somehow cuts it to the heart of the issue I have with the original statement.

It's not about evaluating the quality of a single term of comparison - that's perfectly legit, it's about dismissing the value of diversity.

"Nintendo makes the best games" would be akin to "caucasian girls are the most beautiful". It's such a large generalization that you either think that

a) the person making the statement is generalizing a limited experience to ethnic types (induction)

or

b) his very personal tastes match so much the caucasian ethnic type, that a girl belonging to an ethnicity will sincerely always look the most beautiful to him (deduction)

If at the same time the same person tells me that no, he actually has a great deal of experience with girls of any ethnicity, thank you - excluding a) - then it must imply b) or in other words that however beautiful an Innuit girl is, he will prefer a beautiful caucasian girl. Here's where I say that I respect his tastes, but it must mean that he doesn't appreciate the peculiarities of Innuit girls, what makes them different from his preferred type.

As for comparison in itself being the real issue, the subject is intriguing. But basically what I'm saying is that to compare unlike things you have to find some common criteria. The more different they are, the more abstract and relieved from the actual, detailed reality these criteria become. In the end you can express such an evaluation and justify it in the terms of such vague criteria, but at the price of losing all the intrinsic value of what doesn't fit them.

You'll all be amazed that game released this year and next wont look as good as games released at the end of this console cycle... likely in 2012-2013... and graphics end when they can simulate reality in real time... ie Holodeck

I don't agree that claiming that Nintendo makes the best games is the same as dismissing the value of diversity.  I think it would be easy to both believe that Nintendo makes the best games and also uphold diversity as a value--there's no contradiction there.  You're making the position I'm defending sound more like "the only good games are made by Nintendo," which isn't something anyone I know would claim.

Even if someone thought that "caucasian girls are the most beautiful," again, that's not necessarily the same thing as a dismissal of diversity; such a person could still find a woman of any given ethnicity beautiful, right?  The analogy sounds unpleasant, because it seems to suggest some sort of latent racism (though I don't know if I'd agree there, either), but surely any such idea would be tough to translate into our video game discussion (apart from the worst kind of fanboy, who just likes games based on the system and/or developer).

I don't want to get too deep into the Caucasian vs. Innuit debate for a few reasons, but allow me to say that this "however beautiful an Innuit girl is, he will prefer a caucasian girl" is not necessarily implied by "caucasian girls are the most beautiful."  Sure, I think it must mean that, however beautiful an Innuit girl, there must be some Caucasian girl(s) that are preferred... but it wouldn't mean that every Caucasian girl is preferred to every Innuit girl.  A given Innuit girl could be found quite beautiful and preferred to many Caucasian girls.

Or, to bring it back to video games, someone who feels that Nintendo makes the best games could still believe that any given non-Nintendo game--say Little Big Planet--is superior to 90 or 95 percent of Nintendo games.  Just not 100%.  It wouldn't mean that the worst Nintendo game is preferable to the best non-Nintendo game, though I feel like that's what you consider the position to amount to.

I think I basically agree with what you've said here.  Yes, there must be some level of abstraction to compare a door knob to the color green... but what do you gain by it?  And yet, we're talking about comparing video games with video games.  :)  While I agree that comparing across genres can pose difficulties--and on reflection, I think I agree with you that the separation in video games is bigger than in movies... but I feel that video game players tend to be less rigid than moviegoers in willingness to explore other genres--I don't think it's insurrmountable, or that it makes such comparisons nonsensical as I believe you've implied.

I mean, people can and do make these comparisons all the time, as consumers with their wallets, retailers with their shelf space, and journalists with their GOTYs.  And, retroactively and in community, we also make these (more difficult) comparisons over time, trying to assess the "best games of all time," etc.  And quite often when we do that, Nintendo tends to do quite well for itself... so much so that, were not personal opinion enough of a justification, I think that a person is on solid ground to claim that Nintendo makes the best games.

Not to say that I'm arguing that Nintendo makes the best games, only that a person making such a claim is not necessarily either out of his head, sheltered, or the video game equivalent of a racist! :)  A person can appreciate all genres, all games, and still feel that some developer "makes the best games," Nintendo or any other.

(BTW... wonderful discussion & you can have last word; I'm turning in for the night.)

@werekitten my cooment about Nintendo being the best at making games is aimed at the fact that all other companies with the exception of EA only make one type of genre. Animal Crossing, Metroid, Mario, Starfox, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Wii Sports, Play, Fit, Music, Chess, Smash Bros, Kart, Party, Tennis, Strikers, Super Sluggers..... damned fantastic company with games for EVERYBODY not just pubics to 24!!

They are surely great developers. My nitpicking with the use of "best games" in absolute terms is that as diverse their offering is, it still doesn't cater to everybody's genre and theme preferences. Because they can't develop everything, of course, and because they chose a certain familiy-friendly or light-hearted image. But if you were to totally depend on one game house, I can't think of a better one.