Sure, but that is a whole different argument. When atheists say that that the Bible is "just a book" it's not a dismissal of the value of literature, it's saying that they don't need to be bound to what it says, that to them it's no more than any other book.
If you define fun by "having a blast" then we are talking about the same thing. Why wouldn't a game be valid if it's about delivering a message above moment to moment action? Strip the message away and obviously it's lesser for it. Because it's not a message plus an entirely separate mechanical system, it's about what everything means in context. Rather than focusing on making flashy combos, it's more interesting to ponder over what is it supposed to represent and what is actually happening.
It's a little funny though that I did consider Spec Ops as another example, and that I have seen people judging it the same way that you are doing to Hellblade, that it was a mediocre military FPS, but many rebutted that even its lackluster gameplay is supposed to contribute the commentary. In the same way you praise of Spec Ops, I don't think Hellblade is nearly as bad in that aspect as you say, As an action game it is serviceable, but the action is not the point.
If you argue for serious games but only in the context of the gamification of business and education, you are still glossing over a whole multitude of media that is more about exploring ideas than moment-to-moment thrills, something other media have in plenty, and something which games have incredible potential for. You are thinking of typical games solely in terms of pop culture. There is a lot more to a medium than pop culture and strictly functional tools, and you are making that to be a massive abyss where nothing has worth.
We definitely disagree on the latter. It was harrowing, but the way it handled its themes was fascinating and the gaming culture would be lesser without it.
We don't expect all books and movies to be "fun", why should games all be? We can see other forms of engagement and value in other media.
As Reggie from Nintendo once said, “If it isn’t fun, why bother.”
I haven't played enough to make a judgment about COD in particular, but like you said, this is from Nintendo, a company whose main franchise is a game for kids about a funny little man stomping evil turtles in a fantasy world. It doesn't even have the trappings of something that you can take seriously and use to inform your real life. Nobody would mistake it for anything close to a realistic historical account, unlike COD.
Is Schindler's List fun?
There is more to media and art than whether its fun. Art can be engaging and intriguing without being "fun". I wouldn't call Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice "fun" per se, but it's definitely a good game.
What a ridiculous society we live in that someone can be so rich that they get to threaten people with a gun and don't get arrested. What an unhinged asshole he is.
As far as gaming engines go, Unreal Engine already does this. Not dismissing your point, it is concerning if rent seeking spreads among artistic tools, but this is not a Unity invention.
The issue is that "good" varies a lot from person to person. I like survival crafting games with an incremental tree of improvements more than boss rushes so for me it's good from the start.
It's not uncommon in general emulation to need tweaks for different games, and they already figured those out. If they can get their old games running on Xbox One, One X, Series S and Series X it means they can consistently keep them working across multiple different configurations. At this point, they are perfectly capable of handling a full PC release of these titles if they wanted to. You are getting too caught up in particularities that just don't change the conclusion.
It's not like they'd release a standalone all-purpose emulator. More likely they'd bundle the games with setups that are already tweaked for those particular games. Just as they would need to for Nintendo games. Even Nintendo itself had to do that. The initially flawed Ocarina of Time Switch Online release comes to mind.
It still makes more sense to assume that if Microsoft is not interested in doing it for their own games, there is no reason to assume they would do it for any others.
I'm getting a bit tired of repeating myself. You are responding to a comment that is directed to that particular point.
Microsoft has already figured out how to run older XBox games on PC. As far as the technology goes, XBox One and Series S/X are not compatible with the previous XBoxes, they are PCs in every aspect but branding and closedness. All those games they offer retrocompatibility could be made available on PC. They could put Rare Replay on PC anytime they want. They don't do it because they don't care to do it.
It does not matter that Nintendo emulators are perfect.
They have a working Original Xbox emulator.
They have a working XBox 360 emulator.
They have titles that are entirely owned by them to release, and they only do that on console.
Releasing Nintendo games would be "extremely more likely"? Given that whatever obstacle here is not technical, then the existence of publicly released Nintendo emulators don't change the matter one bit. Meanwhile the licensing complexities only add further obstacles.
The general emulation community is still working on it.
Like I was saying, if they can run retrocompatible games on Xbox Series X, a x86 Windows-like system, then internally Microsoft does have some sort of solution for running OG Xbox and 360 already working.
So it's not a technical issue, public Nintendo emulators don't really change that. Meaning that it's not any more likely that they would offer Nintendo games on PC if they owned them.