Quote:

Nowhereman said:
I think the point though is although Madden etc has a new game every year, thats only one Madden game a year, one Resident evil game a year etc But every second game on the Nintendo is Mario related.



semantics, sure, but the mario games do not come out every year. after 5 years, you'd have 5 maddens and 5 mario games.

Quote:

Nowhereman said:
I realise its a cash cow for them, but I think its often a way to sell a subpar game!



yes and no.

in the past, nintendo has often applied their mascots to games that they felt, otherwise, would not be successful. "dinosaur planet", for example, was an adventure game about a non-descript hero in a new world. nintendo saw how much effort rare was putting into the game, but didn't feel it would be strong enough to support the development.

so, nintendo enforced starfox characters into the existing premise in order to guarantee a certain level of sales.

other samples, like that of the sports lines, tend to cater to a unique fanbase; baseball games really only appeal to baseball fans. however, a baseball game enfused with mario characters doubles the appeal.

its a strategy ever developer and system deploy, nintendo just does it more often as they are console and software developers, as well as the owners of more franchises.

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