Topic: Mario Overkill

I don't know, Splatoon and Codename S.T.E.A.M are enough for the time being(though I agree that even more would be awesome)

It's certainly a good start

Mario's been in tons of games on every system. I mean, I remember seeing somewhere that he's starred in well over 200 different titles, so it's not like he's being used any more now than he was before.

Just look at Mario Wiki for example:

http://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_games

That's all the Mario games by generation. Take out the Donkey Kong ones (and maybe Wario ones), and it generally comes down to about 15-20 Mario games per system, which has remained consistent across generations.

NES: About 16 Mario games
Famicom: About 13 or so Mario games
SNES: About 20 Mario games
Nintendo 64: About 10 Mario games
Gamecube: About 15 Mario games
Wii: About 16 Mario games
Wii U: About 7 or 8 Mario games
Game Boy: About 15 Mario games
Game Boy Color: About 7 Mario games
Game Boy Advance: About 18 Mario games
DS: About 15 Mario games
3DS: About 11 Mario games

I think the perceived 'Mario overuse' really comes from Nintendo not having great third party support in recent years, meaning that the number of Mario games is higher compared to the total number of games on the system. It's no coincidence that the consoles in which Mario is seen as most overused on (Gamecube, Wii U, 3DS, maybe Game Boy Advance and Wii) had the least great third party titles available alongside them.

Really? Do you look at any of these games and think "no thanks, I've already played a game associated with Mario in some way recently"? So you've played Mario Kart, 3D World and NES Remix and BAM, the idea of Smash Bros is immediately less appealing. Sorry, I don't see it. They're completely different games.

That said. Mario in general? Yeah. Last year especially. But when I say that I was over Mario by last year I meant New SMB 2, New SMB Wii, Luigi U, 3D World. Those games are in the same boat. All of the other ones you mentioned are their own entirely separate thing.

Don't forget Giant Robot, Project Guard, and the recently released Rusty's Real Deal Baseball.

Now, they overuse Mario because the masses love him and recognize him, thus they buy the games. Besides Pac Man, Mario is the oldest gaming mascot, and many of his platformers have been groundbreaking and critically acclaimed, so Nintendo would be dumb not to bank on that.

With that, I hate the Mario and Sonic games and other cheap cash ins like the New Super Mario series. And I agree with @skywake, how can one include Yoshi's Wooly World and DKC in that list? What is next, Link and Samus because they cameo in Super Mario RPG?

NSMBU is the highest selling Wii U title. I get what you are saying, but Mario and his friends are why people buy Nintendo, or at least a big part of why. I don't really count Yoshi, Toad and DK as Mario titles- and even MK and Smash are kinda spinoffs.

I play 3D Mario games and ignore the rest. Mario Maker looks interesting though.

Mario is a different franchise to yoshi toad dk etc. op post makes no sense. It's whole one world ninty world which is the way it should be.

There's nothing disappointing about these sales. Sm3dw 2.5 million, nsmb u 4.5 million nsmb2 7 million etc.

I am hoping they are not too tight with Mario Maker so that the next time they make a 2D Mario they have to put in as much effort as they do with the 3D ones.

Decent sales in their own right, but disappointing by series' standards surely. NSMB2 and U will never get close to the near 30 million of both NSMB and NSMBWii, hence my comment of a massive drop-off (perhaps by being released too soon). I think Nintendo would consider them disappointing as they (I imagine) had hoped they would be the massive behemoths and system sellers that the first two were.

I think the problem is less that Mario is overused (Mario has ALWAYS been overused) and more that more often than not they've been the exact same idea as previous games in their own subseries until really recently.

Even the last Mario and Luigi from what I understand mostly just replaced Bowser with Luigi dreams.

That is not the whole picture though. The question is did people buy those titles after getting the system (Say originally for Wii Sports) or did they did they get the system for those titles.

I don't really mind him showing up so much if it weren't for the fact that the last few Mario games have just been so samey and boring. I mean, compare 3D Land to 3D World, or any of the NSMB games. There's not much of a difference in gameplay between each of them (or any of the 6 for that matter) and it just feels like they could've condensed them all into one or two games. Next Mario game I'd like to see them experiment with some new gameplay styles and concepts, not just reuse the exact same gameplay and throw in one new powerup each time.

I thought the topic title implied that they were going to make "House of the Mario: Overkill". I'd buy that!

But seriously, Nintendo has released about the same amount of Mario games on every system. The only reason people are starting to get vocal about it is that Nintendo has had issues with third party support in recent years. This makes the library much smaller with less variety and you're more likely to run into some sort of Mario game whilst looking into new games to purchase for your system. I will admit that I was one of the many people that were relieved that Splatoon wasn't "Mario Paintball".

So you are going to completely ignore the fact that Mario also embraces a huge variety of game genres. Besides Mario sells so can you blame them?

Agreed. Mario is the longest video game character I've ever seen alive to this day and my personal favorite series. I can't find anything that I hate in the Super Mario series as well as the RPG and Mario VS Donkey kong ones (Except Sticker Star) Infact Mario is the one that influenced many characters like Sonic, Rayman and Banjo-Kazooie as well as Conker(what happened to you Rare? ).

But I don't think its aimed that you have to get your hands on all of them since most of them like Sunshine are a little difficult to get. Infact Mario games are meant to be fun so you can't go wrong there.

Personally, I want to get a Wii U and get Super Mario 3D World because It looks really fun to play it but I'm just waiting till Nintendo announces another price drop.

The users taking this to heart and engaging defense mode in here is rediculously alarming

4 mill and 2 mill aren't bad numbers when only 6mill consoles have been sold. Remember that the equivalent numbers on Wii (27mill for New SMB Wii, 11mill for Galaxy, 7mill for Galaxy 2) are lifetime sales for a console that ended up selling 100mill units. What would be "good" sales for a Mario game on the Wii U if it's not 1 to 2 3rds of people who own the system? They're two of the top three selling games on the platform....

I dunno if I can take this seriously when you consider Yoshi's Wooly World a "Mario" game.