Kuma_Nur said:
Mario
How Many Games will it take before fans say enough? I'm guessing "Never"
This is almost certainly the correct answer as Mario has appeared in over 200 games. None of the other Nintendo classic franchises come close and modern interpretations of "franchise milking" pale in comparison. On the NES alone you had Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 2, Super Mario Brothers 3, Golf, Dr Mario, Mike Tyson's Punchout (He was the ref), Mario is Missing, Mario's Time Machine and even an appearance in
Tetris. That's ignoring his presence in games that were never released in the US, or I'm sure plenty of games where he made a cameo.
By contrast, modern contenders for milking include Halo (3 main series games, a prequel and a side story along with an offshoot RTS title for a total of
six games in a decade), Guitar Hero (5 main series games and a total of 20 games bearing "Guitar Hero" in the title), Call of Duty (Six main series games, nearly a dozen individual titles like Finest Hour or Big Red One), and Final Fantasy (50 total titles including 13 main series and many notable offshoots such as Tactics). That simply pales in comparison to Mario to the extent that the discussion more or less has no reason to happen.
To put it simply, Mario has been milked to the point where people no longer consider yet another Mario game to be
milking at all. It has been milked to the point that one cannot discuss the history of video games in any way without spending a fair amount of time talking about Mario. He's been milked to the point that he has literally had brand new titles for me to play since I was but a tiny child and I'm pushing
thirty.