I mean, they listen sometimes. But the point is, they, as any other company, were doing it to pretend that they are cool and progressive. As the result they got mostly negative reactions. So why bother with the effort if you’re only gonna reduce your already dwindling player base. IIRC, they were very small symbolic events anyway.
I can understand not liking the genres or having different stylistic preferences, but saying that new Mario games are shovelware? Have you played them? SMB Wonder was the most fun my brother and I have had playing a platformer in like 20 years. The game is full of creativity, almost every level introduces a new game mechanic that could easily be its own game.
IMO, that’s the wrong direction. The right direction is to apply some good CRT shaders. Those games were designed for CRT and low resolutions and they can never look great when rendered at higher res. Upscaling works much better for PS2 generation and up.
As you mentioned, it’s still a slab, that is only good for a few genres of games. Basically, a flat controller without the analog sticks, which is opposite of ergonomic, and you don’t use that with a mouse.
You’re misinterpreting my point. We can make a device with precise inputs that isn’t a flat slab of buttons, we just haven’t yet. This is not a gamepad vs. KBM argument.
It’s not really that ironic. Something more ergonomic with the same tactile short travel buttons would’ve worked even better, you can just also do it with a keyboard, albeit not as comfortably.