I believe he's always done that. It's his little thing, I suppose and he's been around long enough to back it up =)
OT: I forgot to mention my love for Zelda aswell, but it's not my favorite franchise. I've felt most of them has been too incomplete for my taste. But their games are generally good. Especially Skyward Sword feels to me, if you can take off the nostalgia glasses, to be the best installment in their franchise so far. And if it just gets better from here, we've got alot of good Zelda games ahead of us.