Thought this was posted already since it's kind of an old article but I couldn't find any traces of it so.... (Lock if I'm wrong)

Long story short in my opinion after reading the article, Nintendo strives for the best experience possible with 95% of their games. They never want to rush a product just to make money and will only release what is in their belief is the most polished product possible. Also they don't want to throw 80% recycled gameplay from a game release last year only to add 20% new features like recent CoD releases (least how I feel about Recent CoD games anyway)...

In other worls, they strive for their products to each earn this:

Full article here http://www.gamepur.com/news/19901-nintendo-not-offering-annual-mario-kart-and-super-smash-bros-releases.html

Nintendo has different approaches for each of its series when it comes to annual releases, but that's not something it considers for Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros. According to Nintendo of America's Scott Moffitt, the company wants to keep surprising its fans providing them titles when they've something unique to share with their public, not when there's some money to be raised.

At least, this is what Moffitt explained to the Examiner website, underlining that “there's not a new Mario Kart every year” for a reason:

"We tend not to annualize our franchises, there's not a new Mario Kart every year. What we've tried to do with the Wii U is first, create a fully-featured, really enjoyable game that has something for everybody, has surprises that you'll discover as you play through levels, and it gives you a good amount of quality entertainment.

For fans who love [Mario Kart], we've released extra content over time so that it keeps the game fresh and allows them to experience more than they could when they originally bought the game.

That's the approach we take, rather than annualizing the franchise, we are periodically releasing new courses, levels, and features that keep people playing. We see a huge surge in gameplay hours on Mario Kart when we release [new content]."

This is not what we've been used to with the Pokemon franchise, anyway. Here's why:

"If you look at the Pokemon franchise, we have released multiple core games for the 3DS. We like to give fans something every year, but [for] something like Mario Kart or Smash Bros.,there may only be one version of that franchise in the whole console cycle.

It depends on "the franchise, the developer, and what new ideas they can bring to [a] franchise to move the gameplay forward and keep [it] fresh," but "incremental changes may not be worth a whole new release."

Do you like this approach, or would prefer Nintendo doing some more titles from their beloved franchises? Share your opinion in the comments below.

I think it's a good tactic for these franchises. They really don't need more than one per gen. These games always hold the attention of their audience and retain quality throughout their console's lifespan, so it makes sense.

If Nintendo released Mario Kart or Smash Bros every year, I would stop buying them.  One of the many great things about those two franchises is that they only come around once per console cycle.  They go all in and make the best possible version they can, every time.  You know what you're getting is going to be amazing, and that you'll be playing it for literally years.

Nintendo couldn't possibly, at all, make a full Smash Bros every year. It takes hundreds of people two to three years.

Nintendo is smart. Annualized franchises are horrible.

This article says basically nothing. They only release Mario Kart and Smash Bros around once a generation because development times are too long to manage otherwise. New Pokemon gets released often because it's basically all Game Freak works on, so it's either be making Pokemon, or make something else. Even with Tembo, they only allocated a small team to make it.

Why does the article make it sound like Nintendo has been doing DLC for two decades? They say what they're doing with Mario Kart 8 is a standard, yet, it's completely new to this generation. Continued content for a game is not the reason they only do one release a generation, considering they've been doing this stuff since the SNES and N64.

All in all, this article smells like BS at best. I guarantee, Nintendo would turn out annual releases for everything if they could just because people would keep buying them anyways.

This can also answer why Nintendo games tend to be more expensive than games on other consoles... Nintendo games are meant to sell throughout the consoles life cycles and in many cases beyond it (Nintendo STILL Publish, Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario Kart DS), while many other games are only meant to sell throughout a year's span before the latest version of that game comes out (CoD and AC games are a good example of this). Plus their games are actually complete and not rushed unlike the two games I just mentioned.

I have to imagine turning Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. into annual franchises would eventually cause franchise burnout among the casual Nintendo consumer. I would imagine the risk of consumer burnout exacerbates the cost of having to perpetually devote resources each year to those titles.

Furthermore, since both of those franchises only come out once per console cycle, Nintendo can maintain higher prices on their games for a longer period of time. Pokémon games tend to retain value and still sell well because Gamefreak puts different difficult-to-obtain Pokémon in each installment (with ORAS being the major exception, as it has a ton of legendaries), which encourages the purchase of older titles in the series.

I hope they never do it cause the delay between them is a good thing imo

I'm glad they're not annual franchise tbh, (especially Smash.)

It would kill the hype, and they wouldn't have time to make polished entries in the series.

Took the words right out of my month. Also allows them to make other games while their old ones continue to make money. Smart business all around.

Agreed. Less time to work on a game for best results, and kills the hype you feel for the game as well thru time!

Nintendo's never really offered annual releases of any franchise.

DKC, DKC2, DKC3 in three consecutive years from 94-96 is about the only time I can remember them doing that.