Super Mario Sunshine (Gamecube Backwards Compatiblity).

Before the Wii came into the picture? Perhaps Pokemon. But Mario is their bread and butter, just like how the Master Chief is Microsoft's bread and butter.

Nintendo has the 3 of the top 4 videogame franchises. Yes, Nintendo doesn't own WoW, but you know... Nintendo will still have pokemon and the wii franchise so it would still be huge.

If they never had Mario, they'd have come up with another huge franchise that would've taken its place.

yes, nintendo could survive. pokemon, zelda, metroid, and other series would keep nintendo on the top.

edit: or atleast they'll remain a great game company.

Probably they could due to Pokemon, the Wii series and the fact that they earn money with every console sold.

First off, Nintendo would invent something to replace him if Mario couldn't be used for some imaginary reason all of the sudden (lawsuit, lack of popularity, protesting his 'stereotype').

Second of all, if Mario had never been made in the first place, Nintendo, and gaming as a whole, would be a lot smaller than it is today. So on that note, its like asking if Squaresoft could have survived without Final Fantasy or Sega without Sonic. Which ironically I guess my examples aren't too good since they both required buy outs from other companies....

In the end, I'd say Nintendo would have done fine.  However, Mario was the plateu that pushed them over from a modreately successful arcade publishing company with a struggling home console to one of the most successful game developers ever.

Mario games are good but honestly I always buy nintendo consoles for Zelda and nothin more,anything else good is just a bonus but I'd actually buy any nintendo console even if Zeda were the only game made for it.I love Zelda.

Nintendo can survive as long as they dominate the hand-held division! The better question would be could Microsoft survive off of just its 1st party games! The answer to that question is really easy!

Can Microsoft survive without Halo? Of course it can.
My answer is yes.