I don't agree here.

Nintendo games don't look like cheap cartoons at all. They are absolutely not photorealistic but they do put a lot of work on the aesthetics/art and it's most of the time relly impressive once you take the hardware limitations into account.

Mario 64 ran on the same console that was known for its 3D blur.

Mario Galaxy 1&2 (which are still totally modern in terms of aesthetics) ran on what was basically an overclocked gamecube.

Mario Kart 8 which is still more beautiful than a lot of modern games ran on the Switch, which is itself based on a 2015 mid-range smartphone hardware.

I think it's more that Nintendo's choice of hardware (and its relative lack of horsepower) force them into more stylized visuals because it means photo-realism is basically off the table to start with. We the audience tend not to care, because Nintendo has capable artists who can create something aesthetically pleasing outside of "realistic" graphics.