Are Nintendo Franchises Actually Milked? (by Carl B.)

July 11, 2011, by Carl B. - Nintendo is one of the oldest publishers in the video game industry, giving them a robust list of franchises accumulated over the many years. They have so many familiar intellectual properties that some fans have grown tiresome of them in the last two decades, no matter how high in quality they may be. These fans claim that Nintendo are milking their storied franchises, but is this actually true?

Now that I've finally had the opportunity to play The Last Story, my most anticipated game of 2011 has switched to The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. This year marks the 25th anniversary for the series, with 18 total games released including the two remakes (Link's Awakening DX and Ocarina of Time 3D) and the upcoming Skyward Sword.


Do 18 games in 25 years make The Legend of Zelda milked? Definitely not, especially considering new console iterations come out every three to five years. I feel like it's been ages since the last console Zelda title. In fact, it's been half a decade since the last one released. Compare that to Call of Duty, which sees an annual release; Modern Warfare 3 will be upon us soon, and I feel like Black Ops came out yesterday.

Nintendo's biggest series and one of the strongest brands in all of gaming is milked, no question about it. Mario has been around for 26 years, and he's been in over 250 video games. That number is skewed a bit since there have only been eight main Super Mario games, but Nintendo has milked out his branding by making countless sports games and spin-offs that feature the plumber.

Mario sports games aren't of the highest quality, save for Mario Strikers Charged, and the spin-offs like Mario Party aren't too hot either, but the main Mario titles are fantastic: Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 2, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Mario Galaxy 2. If the quality of those eight games – the core Mario titles – were low, then there would be a problem with the Mario franchise.


For example, it's universally agreed on that Sonic has been bad, and oftentimes terrible, after the release of Sonic Adventure 2. Both Sonic Colors and Sonic the Hedgehog 4 were great, but for the better part of the last ten years, Sonic has been absolute crap. Despite this, Sega continued to pour out new Sonic game after new Sonic game. Since Nintendo's core Mario games aren't bad, it makes it slightly easier to deal with the shameless milking of his brand name. Pokemon falls into the same category as Mario.

Nintendo's other franchises haven't seen as many entries as Mario, Zelda, or Pokemon. Metroid was dormant until Retro Studios revived it with the fantastic Metroid Prime, and even though the series is back in the swing of things, we've only seen five new games. F-Zero and StarFox were missing from the Wii's library, which is a shame, and Punch-Out finally got a reboot. Even Kid Icarus is coming back, and that franchise has only seen two entries in the last 25 years.


It all boils down to this: if the games aren't bad, then what's the problem with making more? It's not like Nintendo isn't developing new IP, they just haven't been releasing a lot of them outside of Japan, sadly. Who can blame them, though, when 20 million gamers go out and purchase the same rehashed Call of Duty title every year?

The only franchise that Nintendo milks is Mario. If we didn't have to wait five years for the next console Zelda title, or 20 years for a new Kid Icarus, then that fact may change.