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Mario vs. Pokemon - Which is the bigger game IP

C

Crayolan

Member
Pokemon is a huge multimedia franchise, Mario is primarily restricted to video games. Mario only wins if you only count the video game side of Pokemon.
 
S

sanstesy

Member
JoeM86 said:
Context.

Mario Run is out in over 160 countries.

It took Pokémon GO 2 weeks to be out in 10
Click to expand...

It took Pokemon one month to reach 100 million total downloads and by that time frame it was already out in the most important countries. Context only helps that much. SMR will have done more than half of that in a matter of one week.

Also, it took Pokemon GO 2 weeks to be out in ~35 countries. EDIT: I completely forgot to mention that SMR isn't even out on Android at this point of time while Pokemon GO had both versions at launch. Even more insane to think about.

blakep267 said:
How much money has super MARIO run made? We know how much Pokémon Go made. Downloads mean nothing if people ain't buying anything. I even downloaded run to see what was up. Didn't buy the full game thoigh
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Unless SMR goes F2P with micro-transactions, Pokemon GO will undoubtedly be always the more profitable venture. Downloads mean everything in that case because anyone can try them out for free if they want to.
 
B

Busaiku

Member
In terms of licensing, nothing in gaming is close to Pokémon.
The Pokémon Company earned in excess of $2.1 billion last year. It is very likely to increase this year, probably by an insane amount.
Nintendo/Mario wasn't even in the top 150.
 
A

Afro Thunder

Member
The Economist published an article this week about Mario.

How Super Mario became a global cultural icon

Mario, an extravagantly mustachioed Italian-American plumber from Brooklyn, is Mr Miyamoto’s most famous creation. He is also the foundation of Nintendo’s fortunes; David Gibson, an analyst at Macquarie Securities, a broker, reckons that his antics account for a third of the company’s software sales over the past ten years. Games in which he features have sold over 500m copies worldwide. His image appears on everything: not just T-shirts and mugs, but solid gold pendants.
Click to expand...

http://www.economist.com/news/chris...o-lives-america-was-conceived-japan-and-loved
 
A

AnathemicOne

Banned
If going purely by video games then prolly Mario. If taking in account other factors then Pokemon; Mario doesn't have a 20-year running anime
 
A

AntMurda

Member
Busaiku said:
In terms of licensing, nothing in gaming is close to Pokémon.
The Pokémon Company earned in excess of $2.1 billion last year. It is very likely to increase this year, probably by an insane amount.
Nintendo/Mario wasn't even in the top 150.
Click to expand...

Nintendo was anti-licensing for a bit until last Summer no? When they announced the Business Development Division for that very purpose. That's what led to the licensings (Campbells, Vans, etc), Universal Studios, restaurants, etc. So that picture may change in the next coming years.
 
A

AntMurda

Member
Azuran said:
Mario had a 10 year head start. Comparing sales numbers doesn't really make much sense.
Click to expand...

We compared the top 30 to make it fair. Otherwise it would be a massacre as Mario had about 42 more million sellers I had to cut off. Pokemon has exactly 30 unless I missed one.
 
C

captmcblack

Member
Mario had all that licensing shit for eons even before Pokemon was a thing. We already had Mario on every kind of product possible in the 80s and 90s. We already ate Mario cereal and Mario fruit snacks, and watched Mario cartoons on TV and bought Mario toys/books/games/clothes/etc. We already saw Mario in movies. The media juggernaut that Pokemon is, Mario already did that and will do that again soon.

Mario has already lived a cycle of crazy marketing - and even in his current semi-retired state, he's still the biggest deal. Nintendo is about to license their IPs for theme parks for the first time ever - and you can rest assured it'll be the Mario stuff that drives that car.
 
S

SciencePilot

Member
It's Pokemon because Pokemon has a much larger multimedia franchise. Mario may sell more games but it's definitely not the bigger franchise.
 
S

Sterok

Member
Where are you getting your early Pokemon sales? GAF data has vastly different numbers. Red/Blue/Green is at 31.38 million. Yellow is at 14.64 million. Gold/Silver at 23.10 million. Crystal at 6.39 million.

Anyway, in just video games, Mario is stronger (though that may change when both start getting more consistent mobile outputs). In terms of overall brands Pokemon is king. Pokemon has far more merchandise and licensing, and it didn't need a massive ad campaign to make more money on mobile than every other mobile game combined.
 
M

MrBadger

Member
It has to be Pokemon, right? Maybe it's Mario in terms of just games, but Pokemon is a media empire with a TV show, trading card game and merchandise. Mario has those too (does Mario have a card game?), but he's primarily a videogame while Pokemon is all of the above.
 
S

Shikamaru Ninja

任天堂 の 忍者
Sterok said:
Where are you getting your early Pokemon sales? GAF data has vastly different numbers. Red/Blue/Green is at 31.38 million. Yellow is at 14.64 million. Gold/Silver at 23.10 million. Crystal at 6.39 million.

Anyway, in just video games, Mario is stronger (though that may change when both start getting more consistent mobile outputs). In terms of overall brands Pokemon is king. Pokemon has far more merchandise and licensing, and it didn't need a massive ad campaign to make more money on mobile than every other mobile game combined.
Click to expand...

You added Pokemon Yellow / Green which was released separately from Red / Blue. Many people bought the third sku months later as its own game. Which is why OP and most sales data separate them.
 
N

nubbe

Member
Pokemon is all over the place with merchandising and movies/TV

Nintendo has been really up tight with their own brands
 
J

JoeM86

Member
Shikamaru Ninja said:
You added Pokemon Yellow / Green which was released separately from Red / Blue. Many people bought the third sku months later as its own game. Which is why OP and most sales data separate them.
Click to expand...

Actually in Japan, Blue was released separately from Red / Green

Our Red / Blue is the engine of their Pokémon Blue with the encounter data from their Red / Green
 
S

spekkeh

Banned
Mario. Pretty obviously I should say. Both in gaming and outside of gaming. Pokemon is well-known for people who are now 20-30. Mario is well-known for

giphy.gif


There's a reason Abe came dressed as Mario and not Pikachu. Because kids would have to explain Pikachu to most people >40.
 
R

Reset

Member
Pokemon. It has a tv show, a popular app that everyone was playing, card game, competitive scene, and the mainline games sell millions of copies. Feel like more people could recognize Pikachu than Mario at this point.

blakep267 said:
That's not true at all. MARIO is dead to kids. Kids know Minecraft and Pokémon. Even adults know who pika hu is. He's had a float in the Macy's day parade for how many years now.
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Yeah, I feel like more kids would know who Steve from Minecraft is than Mario now.
 
B

blakep267

Member
sanstesy said:
It's the other way around, more people know Mario outside of the gaming sphere than Pokemon.
Click to expand...
That's not true at all. MARIO is dead to kids. Kids know Minecraft and Pokémon. Even adults know who pika hu is. He's had a float in the Macy's day parade for how many years now.

Grandparents, parents etc all were trying to find Pokémon cards and games for their kids for the last 20 years. Has that all been forgotten?

Pokémon is still bringing in 2 billion dollars a year. 2 billion. MARIO is noWhere near that

Pokémon has annual movies, a long running by tv show, games merchandise, a worldwide craze mobile app. It's so much more visible than mario
 
S

Shadoken

Member
Worldwide? And not just Gaming?

Pokemon easily.

Console gaming isnt as big as you guys think in a lot of regions. Especially Nintendo platforms. The TV show is probably among the biggest of all time.Pokemon is a huge IP outside of gaming. As a Video game IP though , its Mario. Heck there are so many people who are like "Pokemon was a game first? not a cartoon?"
 
N

Novocaine

Member
I think Mario is bigger, but Pokemon has a more fanatical fan base

Anecdotally it seems that everyone I know that likes Pokemon really likes Pokemon.
 
S

sanstesy

Member
blakep267 said:
That's not true at all. MARIO is dead to kids. Kids know Minecraft and Pokémon. Even adults know who pika hu is. He's had a float in the Macy's day parade for how many years now.

Grandparents, parents etc all were trying to find Pokémon cards and games for their kids for the last 20 years. Has that all been forgotten?

Pokémon is still bringing in 2 billion dollars a year. 2 billion. MARIO is. Where near that
Click to expand...

Mario is dead to kids says who? My smaller cousins all know Mario and he doesn't even have his own TV show. Nintendo is known for fucking up their IP's licensing for years, that doesn't mean he isn't more popular.

Again, revenue has nothing to do with being the more popular IP. It just says the Pokemon Company is way better at business than Nintendo.

Also, Minecraft isn't even a competition. It is extremely popular with kids and also very lucrative at the moment but overall general appeal is not even close to something like Mario.
 
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