Are videogames art?

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The Wii is "severely underpowered" and Nintendo don't care about games as art, they only want games to be fun. This is part of Chris Hecker's assualt on Nintendo, given at GDC today, as part of the "Games Publishers Rant" session, where he was all too clear in stating where his loyalties lie in the next-gen battle, even going as far saying stating "The Wii is a piece of s***!"

While Hecker is correct in pointing out that the Wii is behind the PS3 and XBox360 when it comes to sheer power, his claim that Nintendo don't care about games as an art form comes across as a bit narrow minded. Ignoring the fact that Nintendo recently released Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, a game that is hardly lacking in depth and beautiful visual artwork, Hecker seems to be stuck with the idea of art being serious, and high brow. Just because games like Wii Sports aren't pushing next gen graphics, does that mean it execution as a whole is worthless?

Games are clearly a combination of many different artforms - music, graphics and design. Does this automatically make the end product art? And if one game counts as art, shouldn't all of them?

And side-stepping the art issue, how can someone complain at a games company for not taking games seriously. So, you mean to say they approach them with a sense of fun then? Fun, in a game??? Are they mad??!?

It's this excessive need to be taken seriously that lead games into their stale period over the last couple of years, a period it's just starting to get out of, in my opinioin, thanks to the back to basics approach of Nintendo. If games shouldn't be concetrating on being fun, then why would people play them?