if it's fun, why do you need major changes?
I'm certainly not upset that Mario Kart 8 plays basically the same as the old SNES Mario Kart.
I'm certainly not upset that Mario Kart 8 plays basically the same as the old SNES Mario Kart.
Mario Kart is an example of that: Nintendo is perfectly willing to make more-of-the-same for Mario Kart, but when asked in interviews about the possibility of a new F-Zero, the answer has generally been "we don't want to just release more of the same, we want to come up with some new twist on it". It's not about novelty (or if it is, their standards for novelty are inconsistent), it's about one being a cash cow and the other not.