Could Nintendo survive without Mario?

[Toddifer]

Joelcool7 said:

Toddifer said:
Nintendo could exist without Mario but you also can't ignore the history the company has with Mario, meaning that while Nintendo would exist, obviously it wouldn't be nearly the same company. SEGA would have probably had better luck during the earlier console war generations, and Nintendo as we know it today would probably be smaller and may not have survived through the lean times of the Gamecube...but obviously that's all speculation!

GameCube was lean times? Sure Nintendo didn't have a good marketshare but profits were through the roof. As for could Nintendo survive if Miyamoto died tomorow? The sad answer is yes. Miyamoto has done great things for Nintendo and continues to do so. However Miyamoto isn't the brain making new IP's like he once was. Today Miyamoto produces games not develops them. Because of this Miyamoto is today expendable. Nintendo can maintain Miyamoto's IP's without him.

The real question is, without Miyamoto could Nintendo have ever become the gaming power house it is today and the answer is a resounding No!

I said 'lean times' simply because when you look at how much hw+sw pushed by GC compared to Nintendo's other consoles, it clearly didn't stack up. I wasn't implying that they were 'on the precipice' then or anything like that...