Well, they are milking their franchises. Last year we got two different NSMB games. Year before that we got Super Mario Land and Super Mario Kart, as well as Zelda Ocarina of Time and Zelda Skyward Sword. Year before that we got Super Mario Galaxy 2. Year before that we got New Super Mario Bros Wii. Etc

Nintendo does rely pretty heavily on franchises, and the general point is not that we only get at least one particular flavor of the Mario franchise ever year, but that Mario is featured in at least one game every year without break, often times within months of each other.

Of course, what people seem to forget is, Nintendo is not the only company that relies on names and franchises to sell software. Pretty much EVERY publisher does what Nintendo does, with the same if not more frequency. Yearly Assassin's Creed, yearly Call of Duty, yearly Halo, bi-yearly Gears of War. Sony, too, released two different Uncharted games within months of each other. Handheld version was made by a B team much like NSMB2, but they were still essentially the same kind of game, just on a different platform. People didn't complain, either. Little Big Planet got two games this year (including a cart racer) and one last year, one two years before that and another one the year before that. Don't be surprised if we get another Halo, another Dance Central, another Uncharted, and another LittleBigPlanet game announced this year.

The question isn't whether Nintendo milks their franchises. They do. A given series of game may only get one or two releases on a platform in it's life span, but they still milk franchises. The question is why people are singling Nintendo out for this complaint, when the industry as a whole, including companies, journalists, and consumers, get excited for, mostly make, and mostly buy nothing but sequels. This isn't a Nintendo problem. It's a game industry problem. And it's one that isn't really a problem because these games are still often pretty damn good, which is why people buy them, which is why companies make them.

Mario is quite ubiquitous these days. I never thought I'd see the day when I was tired of seeing him, but lately that's the feeling I'm getting. I'm not sure about games with other characters but Mario is definitely being used aggressively. But to be honest, Nintendo brings the goods and to me the quality of the franchises people claim are being milked are not going down. It would be nice if they introduced more new IPs though.

Actually, on second thought, the main reason is probably that Nintendo has had such shit third party support. Of the games that people have traditionally associated with Playstation, most of the biggest ones are third party. So thanks to Metal Gear, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, and what have you, Sony is freer to focus on its smaller stable of first party IPs without making their whole platform seem like it's just a GodofWarStation.

That's funny. You know what Pikmin was based off? :D

THIS!

God bless you.

Of course everyone will do it.

I WILL DO IT! AND I WILL BE SO HAPPY TO BE CALLED MILKER - FLAt UNISPIRED MILKER!

With only a difference Mario is evertyhgin except flat an unispired.

What would you do if you owned Mario?

I feel it's just that we're going through a bit of a Mario over-exposure period at the moment, and I may be way off on this but I think it's because of the 3DS' slow start and subsequent price cut.

Mario is a safe bet, he is the face of gaming and will sell no matter what. In the past 2 years Nintendo have launched two new systems and what they learnt from the 3DS they applied to the Wii-U. Launching 3DS at a high price without Mario caused a panic price cut and a lot of lost money. When two games with Mario in appeared simultaneously, plus the big price drop, suddenly the thing started selling like hot cakes.

From this, Nintendo were never going to launch the Wii-U without their star. It's just unfortunate that two 2D platformers starring the plumber appeared in the same year, and that we've also had Mario Tennis plus the Mario Kart & 3D Mario we had in 2011. And when the Wii-U launched out the gate below expectations, although not the centre of the showcase - more Mario was shown (3D & MK).

Basically, as other people have said, it's more Mario over-exposure than milking franchises. And I don't blame Nintendo. They want their systems to start doing well early, and Mario games are nearly always among their highest selling. I don't even think things are that bad, Pikmin is the current franchise they're promoting for Wii-U which has been absent for 8 years and won't even get close to Mario's sales. And since I believe a big focus of Nintendo Direct was Monolith's game and Wind Waker, that's good too. It's just a shame MK & 3D Mario were thrown in there too. I'm very much looking forward to them, but the complete lack of information about them suggests to me a Nintendo in panic mode, hoping that even more Mario is what the Wii-U needs.

Which is probably does, I guess. This post got a bit longer than intended and I'm kinda tired, so sorry if it doesn't make a lot of sense. It sounded right in my head :(

sorry dude,but you are argueing in a very strange way.
Make such a list including:
Game boy advance
DS
and 3ds
you may realize
many more mario games will appear.

than just take a look at the nintendo charts.
half of them mario games,most of them released not long ago.
three mario 2d games for wii/u/3ds(almost always the same)
two mario 3d games(wii/3ds, soon to come Wii u)
mario tennis,mario this,mario that,mario smash brothers
too much mario
but no more f zeros and wave racers.

I have never been less surprised in my life.

I'd also like to throw out here that I'm not really talking about sequels.  Games that continue a story or an adventure set in the same world don't really bother me--at least, until there is a significant drop in quality and you get that "what next?" kind of feel.  I'll be fine with another God of War, Halo, or Mario Galaxy.  Series like Forza or Gran Turismo are also exempt, as long as they keep moving forward.  It's when the characters are torn away from their game worlds and pasted all over everything else for the sole purpose of branding, that's what bugs me.

With Nintendo, you get the feeling that they look at the calendar and say, "we need another Mario game".  I don't really like that.  It's kind of the same with Zelda, where you get the idea that they're constantly sorting through unrelated ideas for something they can transform into a Zelda title.  It seems really cynical to me.