"Where are the quest lines!?" they bellow in unison from their teeming hive below. "Give us cut scenes and check points! Bald-headed protagonists that afflict and offend!"

"Sure, you've created a limitless universe that extends infinitely into a beautiful and ever-expanding galaxy of iridescent grace, but how's the cover system?"

"You might have given me a planet that will forever bear my name and a posterity of self-perpetuating life and vitality teeming across a globe all my own, but what's your DLC plan?"

"When can I buy a Time-Savers Pack for my singular traversal across an unexplored universe?"

"What's my motivation!?"

"Why on earth would I want to discover and determine my own destiny across the vast expanse of space? Don't leave me here all alone in my senseless triviality. We want corridors and cliffhangers, modes and missions!"

"Sure, I could lose myself with interstellar expeditions and marvel at the magnetism of an immeasurable wilderness cascading into the infinite unknown, but how do the RPG elements carry over into New Game+?"

If you're not absolutely enthralled by the limitless potential that Hello Games is presenting in the form of No Man's Sky, its probably time to reexamine your own sense of discovery and creativity, not the contrived game mechanics you'd like to see implemented.

Oh. Em. Gee. Did you see that? I mean, did you see it?! I know you were looking at it, but DID YOU SEE IT!??! E.3. Twentyfourteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen. I can't even. I... just...can't even begin to even. If you multiplied the number of evens I could by like A BILLION, I still wouldn't even be able to even.

Aisha, darling, you are so hawwwtttt, but the Ubisoft Elite Task Force Dance Squadron!?!? They were spilling over into the aisless, they could not EVEN begin to be contained. Those silly little push-ups in a neckerchief. Just TOTES adorbzzz. And your little shy bearded buddy? What's his deal? Like, WHAT is his deeaalll???

Shut up. Shut it dowwnnnn. Iwata fighting Reggiieeeeeeeee. Ugh, just stahhhppp it. Just stahhpppp. They are just so baaaddd. Like scrumptious bad. Like I baked their little muffins and left them in the fridge for like, a YEAR bad. Nintendo? More like Nintendon't. I can't even. And Andrew, ugh, those leather lapels?!?!?!??! He. Looked. FIERCE. No, he was fierce. He embodies fierce. He's like Tony the Tiger but instead of selling cereal he's selling fierce. Rawrrrrrrr.

Ooooh! How could I forget dreamboat captain Phil muthereffin' Spencer. Shiver. Me. Timberzzzzzz. 3 different outfits in one hour?! Like, lock it down Spencie, like make a decision. You're worse than my girl Jasminnifer trying to order Starbucks when Jaden is on bar back. Just STAHP. We have to get to yoga. I can't even.

No Man's Sky? Baby you can have my sky and whatever else you want. I will procedurally generate your dreams sweet thing. Don't be shy, Sony loves you and your blind ambition, get it. GET. IT. Ohmygosh. OH. mygosh. Those cargo shorts. Can you say throwbacckkkk?! Holla at me when you got the slap bracelets and backward baseball caps. We'll play pogs and try out this new pokemon game, I hear its huge in Japan.

Splatoon? I think I just did. Oh stahpit. I'm so baddd. Show me how to tilt this gamepad alllll the way back. I'll open your Zelda world. If a fish and a bird can make it, baby we got this one in the bag. We're like. Done. Like for sure. We're more in than dragons, jungles and co-op. Now lets get out of here so I can show you my lush forestation. See you again in 2015 ya'll.

I took the screenshot above about 3 months ago, as a reminder of just how bewildering the Big N has been since the Wii U. Even with a 360-esque head-start on the console competition, and a cash advantage that makes even Microsoft take notice, Nintendo still set fire to 3rd party ties and managed to squander their astounding brand success in one fell Wii-U swoop.

So do you want to know what Nintendo is doing? I'll tell you: failing; miserably, on a comically catastrophic scale, and they only have themselves to blame. Do want to know what else? Nothing can save them.

Their cash-grab NFC figurines won't save them, HD Zelda won't save them, Smash Bros. won't save them, and Lord knows they're completely incapable of building new IP.

The tides of the blue ocean are out to sea, content to sail adrift their last-gen hardware and fitness trainers with no clear incentive to head back to shore. Software that used to be cutting-edge, difficult, and rewarding is now a barren wasteland of party games without consequence whose only purpose is to sap the little remaining nostalgia a maturing audience can muster for their abusive forbears.

What will Mario and friends be doing at E3 this year? They'll continue to thrash in the swirling tides of their inevitable demise, caught in an undertow of their own making, treading water with arms outstretched as their software associates continue to distance themselves from the sinking S.S. Nintendo while they bat away life-preservers in their own belligerent bullshit.

So quit coddling them, I'm done giving Nintendo the benefit of my doubt. They have to do something drastic, or this time, it really will be game over.