I think this works both ways.
The other games made SmashBros more appealing. I know lots of people when SmashBros came out wanted to play as Fox and Samus because those characters came from their favorite games. I of course couldn't wait to pair Pikachu up with Mario or fight Mario and Luigi. I'd say the other games benefitted SmashBros and with Melee even more so because you had characters from a ton of other games and then even more so with Brawl. I mean with every game the sales grow bigger and bigger even though GameCube sold less hardware units.
On the other hand I think SmashBros does benefit past games. I know after playing Melee and Brawl I suddenly had the urge to go back and play Ice Climbers and Kid Icarus even though I never played the games back in the day. Also I bet Kid Icarus coming back is partially due to his presence in Brawl. Of course I have always been a huge Nintendo fan so I was already playing all the other franchises long before SmashBros came around. But I have no doubt that SmashBros has caused people to be curious about other Nintendo franchises.
It'll be interesting to see how Kid Icarus does, considering that the franchise has been gone for such a long time. The biggest selling factor will be Pit was in Brawl! Then we'll be able to see just how much SmashBros influences sales!
-JC7
"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer
