I've never stated that new IP's don't spring up on Nintendo platforms, just that they do with much smaller frequency.

I believe the Ware (WiiWare, 3DSWare) titles allow Nintendo more opportunities to produce new IPs at an increased rate since the budget/risk isn't as high.  So they probably test a few new ideas/IPs out on Ware and if it does great then they make it into a retail release (they did this with FreakyForms).

I think if Nintendo put out a few more new IPs (and when they did, bother to publish them in the US) with the same level of management that Mario receives, these complaints wouldn't exist.

And people most definitely criticize MS for milking. There's been 5 Halo games for the 360 (6 if you count CE remake). Sony doesn't get criticized as much because of the much wider breadth of series they have.

Cherry picked arugument/blindingly obvious/@OP.

Ignored parallel hand held consoles, use of mario since the birth of time, very little improvement in graphics incrementally between each new game, no genuinely new formula, typical gimmicks applied.

If you are talking about 2D Mario, that only really applies to the NEW series, which I will agree is milked but atleast held to 1 iteration per platform.  I disagree about 3D Mario.

I think also the fact that the handheld has each of those franchises (in addition to the kazillion mario spinoffs), but like you said they do receive a lot of unfair criticism.

Personally I would say that they don't milk their franchises more compared to other companies just that they milk the hell out of Mario. Also it doesn't help that they don't seem to be coming up with all that many new IPs hence giving the impression that they are milking existing franchises.

As an example it is a given that Nintendo will mostly release the same franchises every Gen while you have a developer in Naughty dog and others at Sony who have worked on a new IP every gen. By no means am I saying it's a bad thing that Nintendo will release a 2d mario, 3d mario, mario kart, SSBB, Zelda, metroid every gen as they are all proven sellers and Nintendo would be crazy not to develop them just that it would be nice if they took some more risks with new IPs.

By doing that they can appeal to a wider audience and they can discredit those who say Nintendo milks their franchises or characters.

Edit- As for Sony and Microsoft releasing more iterations this gen that is a given considering they are still developing for their current consoles while Nintendo supported the Wii for a significantly shorter period.

In one word: ignorance. Gamers are really, really ignorant when it suits them. It's easy bashing Nintendo and say "they put Mario in everything". While this is true (they milk the hell out of Mario as a character), the kind of games he's in are totally different from each other.

Mario isn't milked! That thing isn't a tit and that stuff oozing from it isn't milk! And no, you shouldn't let your children drink it.

PS Not just Mario, but also the basic scheme of every 2D Super Mario platform is milked a lot.

And what's funny is, now we see how Sony is trying to milk their franchises as well!