Would you be a Nintendo fan if Mario had never existed?

[pokoko]

RolStoppable said:

pokoko said:
The funny thing is, Duck Hunt and the light gun were Nintendo's big marketing focus back then. I remember people really wanting it for that, because it seemed so cool, like it was an arcade game inside your house. That's why I wanted one, though after I got it, I pretty much never used it again.

Mario BECAME popular because it was bundled with the NES. I think people forget that. Donkey Kong was the well-known character at that point. With that in mind, just about anything could have replaced Mario as Nintendo's bundled game and become popular. Default bundling is THE way to make a franchise popular.

Personally, as someone who never liked Mario games, I would have been happier with something else. The heavy Mario focus always annoyed me somewhat, though I'm kind of glad they pimped out Mario rather than something like Zelda. That would have been sad.

No, the NES became popular because it was bundled with Super Mario Bros. The software sells the hardware.

Default bundling doesn't mean anything, if the bundled game isn't anything special.

Hah, yeah, except no one cared about the Mario Bros. arcade game.  It was basically a new IP and new IPs don't sell hardware.  The NES hit at the right time and became incredibly popular, pulling Mario along with it.  Donkey Kong was their star back then.  Everyone I knew wanted a NES first for the robot, then for the light gun, then for all the games it had.  Perhaps Mario helped in the second half of the console's life-cycle but it certainly wasn't the reason the NES initially broke through.  Mario was just Donkey Kong's understudy at that point.