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Nintendo should retire Mario, Zelda and Metroid

I could understand someone thinking Mario is overused, but Metroid and Zelda?

The only problem with those games are there's not enough of them.
 
This is will never happen. Ever.

Not only will it NEVER happen, it's a really silly request/demand.

Mario spin offs are some of the funnest games out there. Nintendo uses the Mario brand to allow themselves to innovate and experiment while also lowering the risk on return. Much easier to sell Mario Tennis than "Super Fun Tennis New IP I Love You (Laughs)" or Luigi's Mansion than "Haunted Mansion: Ghost Cleaner."

As for sequels to all the main games or spin offs, if they bother you, don't buy them. Sequels are here to stay as long as people buy them (see every other popular IP in gaming history). And I'm a fan of most of Nintendo's IPs and will continue to buy them since they're awesome games. Just like I'll continue to buy all my favorite IPs from all my favorite companies.

To be clear, buying these games doesn't mean I can't buy original IPs either (which I do). Luckily there's no law barring you from buying both.
 
Mario's been declining in sales? Did I step into the Twilight Gaf or something

Both New Super Mario Bros. 2 and U aren't performing on par with the last two titles.

Of course we aren't taking into effect that these are evergreen titles. Even given this they are tracking well below New Super Mario Bros. on DS and Wii.
 
Everybody should retire their first party mascots. Sell'em to third parties like Sony did with Crash. It'll be a great idea because surely what Sony did with Crash was the right way to go. A beloved character people grew up with has zero games coming out in the future.
 
Everybody should retire their first party mascots. Sell'em to third parties like Sony did with Crash. It'll be a great idea because surely what Sony did with Crash was the right way to go. A beloved character people grew up with now has zero games coming out in the future.

Crash was never Sony first party. It was developed by their second party developer, Naughty Dog, but as far as I remember the IP was owned by someone else from the start.
 
Crash was never Sony first party. It was developed by their second party developer, Naughty Dog, but as far as I remember the IP was owned by someone else from the start.

Oh, my mistake. Still, he was hugely recognizable as a Sony character for awhile even if he was second party.
 
What about mario kart 7 and 3D Land?

Does the install base even compare? That's hardly a reasonable comparison, especially when you take into account:

-Mario Kart DS was an experiment that caught the world on fire. Mario Kart 7 is an iteration of the same IP we've seen many times, it's not new like Mario Kart DS was.

-3D Land is another 'experiment', but it's based on 3D Mario. 3D Mario sells very well, but it's not the best-selling Mario IP. And experiments don't always succeed.
 
Anytime someone lumps Metroid together with Mario & Zelda as Nintendo's big franchises, it's pretty safe to ignore everything that person says about nintendo, as he apparently hasn't been paying attention to anything they've done for the last 10 years or so
This.

I see it so many times.
 
Everybody should retire their first party mascots. Sell'em to third parties like Sony did with Crash. It'll be a great idea because surely what Sony did with Crash was the right way to go. A beloved character people grew up with has zero games coming out in the future.

There's not a single "mascot" in gaming that has as much recognition or amount of absolutely iconic games as Mario.
 
Someone should start a couple of new threads

"Why Sony would make more money as a third party publisher"

"Why Microsoft should make Xbox purely an entertainment box and cut games out"
 
I find it very difficult lately to give a shit about what Nintendo do because 9/10 I can predict it. Instead of saying "oh we're putting a lot of time and effort in to this Luigi DLC for NSMBU", how about you make a new game with someone new.

I don't think Zelda and Metroid are overused, the problem is you know they'll be the two franchises they'll more than likely use to show they make "gamer games" or whatever term they wanna give them. It'd be nice if Nintendo could allocate the same resources and effort to something new and different.
 
I find it very difficult lately to give a shit about what Nintendo do because 9/10 I can predict it. Instead of saying "oh we're putting a lot of time and effort in to this Luigi DLC for NSMBU", how about you make a new game with someone new.

I don't think Zelda and Metroid are overused, the problem is you know they'll be the two franchises they'll more than likely use to show they make "gamer games" or whatever term they wanna give them. It'd be nice if Nintendo could allocate the same resources and effort to something new and different.

You could have predicted that Nintendo would have made a large-scale downloadable expansion pack for one of their games? Be careful, you'll make Pachter nervous for his job!
 
You could have predicted that Nintendo would have made a large-scale downloadable expansion pack for one of their games? Be careful, you'll make Pachter nervous for his job!

I said 9/10.

But could I predict Nintendo would make a Luigi game rather than a new IP game? Yeah, yeah I could do that quite accurately.
 
I find it very difficult lately to give a shit about what Nintendo do because 9/10 I can predict it. Instead of saying "oh we're putting a lot of time and effort in to this Luigi DLC for NSMBU", how about you make a new game with someone new.

.

This is so silly. The Mario platforming franchise has been host to a wide variety of styles and formats. What does it matter who the mascot is? The gameplay and levels are all that matters. They brand it with Mario or Luigi and are sure to sell a lot of it while being allowed to experiment wildly like with Super Mario 3D Land (or all the 3D games for that matter, or Luigi's Mansion, RPG, etc etc). This is their strength, the flexibility of this marketing strategy and the variety of games under it.
 
They shouldn't retire any of those franchises that the OP listed.

What they should do is elevate their other franchises to the level that Mario, Zelda and Metroid are. Bigger budget, longer development time, fierce marketing, etc.

Look at the newest Fire Emblem for instance. Its like one day Nintendo woke up and decided like a pro wrestling booker to elevate that franchise to the main event of their line up. And if the reactions in the West are anything to go by, they actually did a pretty damn good job of it. Now the crowd can dig the new guy that the fed is pushing. And they will buy into him as their world champion.
 
Someone should start a couple of new threads

"Why Sony would make more money as a third party publisher"

"Why Microsoft should make Xbox purely an entertainment box and cut games out"

lol i was thinking about this, but that person might get banned for trolling.
 
This is so silly. The Mario platforming franchise has been host to a wide variety of styles and formats. What does it matter who the mascot is? The gameplay and levels are all that matters. They brand it with Mario or Luigi and are sure to sell a lot of it while being allowed to experiment wildly like with Super Mario 3D Land (or all the 3D games for that matter, or Luigi's Mansion, RPG, etc etc). This is their strength, the flexibility of this marketing strategy and the variety of games under it.

But this creates a boring aesthetic. I really enjoyed Mario Galaxy 1. People tell me Galaxy 2 is even better, but I was never motivated to play it. I enjoyed NSMB DS (I know, almost everyone shits on that game) but nowadays can I motivate myself to care about NSMB?

The question isn't "are the games good inspite of Mario" it should be "are the games better because of him". And really, I don't think there's any clear cut answer one way or another. All I can say is from my experience, I find it harder to be excited by Mario Game 20 than I would if they had the exact same game but with a different visual style and character.
 
I said 9/10.

But could I predict Nintendo would make a Luigi game rather than a new IP game? Yeah, yeah I could do that quite accurately.

Someone post the list of new Nintendo IPs. It's a giant list of stuff you may never have heard of, granted, but they make and/or publish new IP games all the time.
 
Someone post the list of new Nintendo IPs. It's a giant list of stuff you may never have heard of, granted, but they make and/or publish new IP games all the time.

And I don't care about that dumb list because 90% of them are either poor or low budget and not addressing my issues.
 
All I can say is from my experience, I find it harder to be excited by Mario Game 20 than I would if they had the exact same game but with a different visual style and character.

I agree with that. But it's fair to say that would sell quite a lot less than Mario Game 20. It's a bummer.
 
This is the only logical answer to this thread:

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And I don't care about that dumb list because 90% of them are either poor or low budget and not addressing my issues.

Hotel Dusk , EBA, Harmo Knight, Pushmo, Rhythem Heaven, Chibi-Robo, garbage, garbage, garbage. I'm sure you've given games in that list a fair shot to call 90% of them garbage.

So.. new IP.. must be garbage. Mario / traditional IP.. must be rehash..
 
Hotel Dusk , EBA, Harmo Knight, Pushmo, Rhythem Heaven, Chibi-Robo, garbage, garbage, garbage. I'm sure you've given games in that list a fair shot to call 90% of them garbage.

So.. new IP.. must be garbage. Mario / traditional IP.. must be rehash..

I love EBA, Pushmo, Rhythm Heaven. But they're not big budget system sellers the likes of which I want to see Nintendo making in addition to the big Zelda, Metroid and Mario projects. Stop playing dumb when it's obvious what I'm saying.
 
And what, good OP, would you replace them with? Some generic space marine? Some anonymous bimbo with huge tits and a deep selection of sidekicks? Because they need to appeal to the adolescent teenager in you, or just because you don't think they're "cool" anymore? This is all about you, really, isn't it?

And Dave up there wants Nintendo to make the next Gears Of War or Uncharted. He clearly doesn't know Nintendo as well as he thinks he does - they're just not Nintendo's type of game. Yes, I know, I loved the Metroid Prime series, too, but that was obviously an anomaly, as evidenced by Other M even being made.

Nintendo won't change their mascots just to please you, and thank the gaming gods for that. But they do come up with new IPs all the time - a pity they don't seem to appeal to you, either. Oh well.

tl;dr - ridiculous thread.
 
And I don't care about that dumb list because 90% of them are either poor or low budget and not addressing my issues.

what do you mean by low budget? do you think Pikmin or Xenoblade were low budget? what about wii sports? you think that because the game was simple it was "low budget"?
 
Hotel Dusk , EBA, Harmo Knight, Pushmo, Rhythem Heaven, Chibi-Robo, garbage, garbage, garbage. I'm sure you've given games in that list a fair shot to call 90% of them garbage.

So.. new IP.. must be garbage. Mario / traditional IP.. must be rehash..

I see his point, though. I would like to see Nintendo internally develop an original IP with the same backing they give their licenses. The last time that happened on any significant scale was Pikmin.

Where the argument falls apart is when it becomes a blanket statement about Nintendo first party developing no new IPs. Xenoblade is at least as much of an in-house title as The Last of Us, and the smaller stuff matches up in quantity, if not always quality.
 
I love EBA, Pushmo, Rhythm Heaven. But they're not big budget system sellers the likes of which I want to see Nintendo making in addition to the big Zelda, Metroid and Mario projects. Stop playing dumb when it's obvious what I'm saying.

What about Xenoblade? That's probably more of a budget than any Mario title.
 
I know that these IPs are considered "hardcore" by Nintendo and NeoGAF posters, but the sales of these franchises have been on a declining curve over the last ten years. Frankly, it's strange that in 2013, Nintendo is still touting these characters, and having to hold on to the tropes of these franchises (ie. Zelda dungeons, Mario rescuing Peach from Bowser, Samus recollecting her powerups) is creatively limiting. I would like to see Nintendo build a new stable of AAA franchises without relying on the crutch of these characters.

Cue, Poochie pics.

The Mario games are still huge. Samus is probably the only overused mascot and that has more to do with Metroid the Other M sucking. And they did build a AAA franchise last gen: Wii "x".
 
The Mario games are still huge. Samus is probably the only overused mascot and that has more to do with Metroid the Other M sucking. And they did build a AAA franchise last gen: Wii "x".

Metroid isn't an overused franchise. There have only been 10 titles in the 27 years it has existed. And it isn't a big franchise, no matter how much we may enjoy it personally. It sells about on par with Kirby worldwide.
 
troll on my good fellow

You've got me all wrong, i love me some Nintendo.
But I cant help but feel if they were to start pumping out new IPs... well they'd probably be dumb..
What was the last thing they added? Waluigi.
 
You've got me all wrong, i love me some Nintendo.
But I cant help but feel if they were to start pumping out new IPs... well they'd probably be dumb..
What was the last thing they added? Waluigi.

You think Waluigi on Mario Tennis obviously the N64 was the last "new" thing they did? And you say you aren't trolling?
 
lol. nintendo has at least 5 series that are more popular than Metroid now.

even goddamn Fire Emblem is bigger now. Fire Emblem. let that sink for a bit and realize how low Metroid actually sells. this year it will be 3 years since Other M came out and killed the series and for some reason, people think it is in Mario or Zelda tier. the series didn't even get a 25th anniversary celebration.

another fun fact: Mario Kart Wii has sold more than the entire Metroid series combined.

so, stop grouping Metroid in this kind of nonsense. people who do that clearly are out of touch and haven't played a game of this series in years. if they actually went and wanted to play one, they'd realize how few there are.

concerning Mario and Zelda, well, Mario is Nintendo's Call of Duty. how about we suggest Activision retire that?
Zelda was actually hurt by not releasing games fast enough since Skyward Sword was released too late and the sales suffered and we still don't have a new Zelda shown for the current Nintendo systems (ports don't count).
 
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