We all had that nightmare, years ago. A fevered, flop-sweat vision of a future we dared not believe could come to pass. "Nintendo making mobile games." Jesus! I still shudder. The benefits of Nintendo sticking to their own hardware have been well argued, and at the very LEAST we enthusiast game-doer...

Nintendo sometimes makes a big deal about milestones—Mario's 30th, Zelda's 25th, and the "Year of Luigi" are all recent examples that come to mind—but one thing you won't usually hear them mention is how long it's been since something went away. Luckily, my encyclopedic knowledge of pointless fa...