Link is a male but that doesn't mean women cannot be heroes

Nintendo is bringing out a game later this year called the legend of Zelda triforce heroes that gives the player the chance to play as 3 Link clones who work together as a team. A blog asked Nintendo if you could play as a female and they said no because you are Link clones and Link is a male which is fair enough. I like Link and don't mind that he is male. I don't think they should make him female just to please those who would like to play as a female Link. That wouldn't be Zelda would it? But what Nintendo said next had me rolling my eyes. They implied that only male characters can be heroes. Now this might've been something that was lost a bit in translation or maybe it's just another example of how sexist Japan can be but I just face palmed. It's such an old fashioned cliche thought. Of course women can be heroes. I don't mind that the backbone of Zelda is a bit cliche because it's part of what makes the game what it is. You rescue Zelda as Link. And Zelda is not always a damsel. In some games she is Link's equal and fights alongside him. In other games she eludes capture for a long time, or even helps defeat Ganon at the end. I would love a game from her perspective but I doubt it'd ever happen. And even if it did I wonder if Nintendo would put the same effort into it as they would with a traditional Zelda game. And I think it probably wouldn't get the same reaction. People like Link. And that's ok. If you change the formula of Zelda too much people get upset. And again that's cool. Zelda works well how it is. But it bugs me that Nintendo thinks that women cannot be heroes. Women can be more than damsels in distress or the ball that gets the plot rolling. I would like at the very least to see characters like Zelda or Tetra or any of the other awesome female characters from Zelda feature in other games. Zelda in Mario Kart would be awesome. That'd be a good place to start. Women can be heroes Nintendo. Yes it doesn't bother us to play as male characters. But it bothers some of us when you say that only men can save the day. It's just not true.