At one point, Nintendo “talked about the possibility” of featuring Mario as the main player character in Splatoon. That’s according to Shigeru Miyamoto, who revealed the information to EDGE this month.

Miyamoto told the magazine:

“There were heated debates over who the main player character should be. Whether it should be Mario, or a squid. When we talked about the possibility of it being Mario, of course we could think of the advantages: anybody would be willing to touch it as soon as we announced that we had the new Mario game. But at the same time, we had some worries. If it were Mario, we wouldn’t be able to create any new IP.”

Source: http://nintendoeverything.com/nintendo-talked-about-the-possibility-of-featuring-mario-in-splatoon/

Took them this long to realise they can't keep raping the Mario IP? They probably found out after 3D World didn't do shit for the U.

I'd much rather play as Mario than those abominations.

Good! Imagine if they had the mentality to make everything Mario back in the 80's. Kirby, Kid Icarus, Duck Hunt, Zelda...they would have ALL been Mario games haha

Glad they went with this approach. Let the guy rest. also is this page broken.

?

And then the genius plan... when you buy Mario Amiibo you can play as squid Mario!

It's OK Nintendo, you can borrow my idea.

At least they know the exact point in time where they lost a million sales.

Well, even though I love Splatoon as its own IP, I think Mario would have sold more

Im glad they made their own IP. Its nice to see something fresh.