There is no flaw, because Nintendo will post their first yearly loss due to the 3DS. The absence of Super Mario Bros. along with the general obsession for 3D (it really is an obsession, no sane business refrains from giving priority to their biggest IP) hurt Nintendo's handheld market which forced them to run their business at a loss. Even now, 3DS sales are slow outside of Japan which proves that Super Mario 3D Land failed to do its job. Its purpose undoubtedly was to make the 3DS sell like hotcakes. It was Nintendo's flagship game, after all.

The direction for awesomeness and the path for sales are one and the same. Only making new levels and adding Miis won't generate the same excitement as NSMB Wii which had simultaneous multiplayer going for it (which was a new experience; and no, other games don't count, because they don't have the fabulous physics of Super Mario Bros.). Nintendo needs to expand the game universe to maintain or increase the sales of the series. Stagnation and lack of ambition will be punished by the market, because people expect more from Nintendo.

But Super Mario Bros. won't retail at a bargain pricetag, because there is no reason why it should if Nintendo puts effort into it. Not sure where this crazy wish of yours comes from. It also makes me wonder who exactly you mean when you say "our demographics". People who like to spit on Super Mario Bros.?

The X-series was released a long time ago, but we are talking about games in recent times. A new Mega Man should throw the formula of eight robot masters overboard and have a lot more. 12-16 levels were okay in the old days, but nowadays there just needs to be a lot more game.

I didn't like DKJB. The Konga controls were awkward, tiresome and restricted dynamic play (i.e. stringing together fluent combinations of jumps). It was somewhat possible with a lot of practice, but it never felt like a worthy successor to the DKC games. It was merely an experiment nobody asked for.

1) Super Mario Bros. 3DS wasn't announced before 2012. The comments Nintendo made previously ("we are making both a 2D and 3D Mario game") most likely refered to one and the same game: Super Mario 3D Land. Which is why Nintendo refused to even show screenshots when Iwata officially announced Super Mario Bros. 3DS in late January of this year. If the game was already on the way long before 2012, it should have reached the point where a trailer could be shown. Instead we got nothing.

2) He was vocal about those things, because he thought they were the wrong direction for Nintendo to take. And looking at the results of these games, he was most certainly right. Regarding the waiting period for fans of 3D Mario, that was hyperbole.

3) He addressed these rumors in the first paragraph of the blog post this thread is based on. He is right in calling them unsubstantial.

4) Nope, not every single one of those points was addressed by Super Mario 3D Land, some of the fundamental issues he has with 3D Mario still remained. And the reason why he stopped talking about disruption and blue ocean strategy is because Nintendo abandoned these concepts around the same time. Ever since then Nintendo's business has been on a sharp decline, aside from the short resurgence towards the end of 2009 which Malstrom praised for obvious reasons.

The main issue that many Nintendo fans seem to have with Malstrom is that he isn't a Nintendo cheerleader who supports all of their actions. Even when he makes accurate predictions like the 3DS won't sell, he is still branded as a hater even after everyone could see the results. The fact that he is still writing about Nintendo shows that he still cares and wants Nintendo to succeed, but his negative tone won't change as long as Nintendo doesn't change. If Nintendo posted healthy profits, then you could point at that and call Malstrom an irrational being. But the reality is that Nintendo is doing worse than ever before, so the irrational people are those who pretend that there is no major problem.

How would you know which numbers I am thinking of when I never mentioned any?

But anyway, logically the sales of three games wouldn't equal triple the sales of only one game being released in the system's lifetime. The more important point is that three releases generate more interest in the hardware than only one release, because new games draw attention. The most difficult part is to get people to buy the hardware, but once they own it, they will buy games. It isn't about maximizing the sales potential for a single game in the Super Mario Bros. series, it's about maximizing the amount of hardware that can be sold and thus the overall amount of software that can be sold (which goes way beyond Super Mario Bros. games alone).

You see, a game like Wii Sports Resort didn't hurt the Wii, it only helped because it renewed interest in the system. Sequels don't have to sell more than the initial game on the system to justify their existence.

I phrased myself a bit poorly there. The point is, I'm not sure there is a demand for several 2D Mario games on a system. The 3 Super Mario Bros games would be made instead of something else on the same machine. I really have trouble seeing how making 3 games in one series/genre will equate to higher hardware sales than three different series/genres. The sequels simply don't make as many people buy the system as the first one did. You can see this in the weekly boosts the systems gain in the release weeks quite easily.

The way I see it, same-system sequels both sell less software and less hardware than you would get by making games in different genres.

1. http://andriasang.com/comqzg/3ds_mario_games/

Sorry, but you're wrong. Nintendo was quite clear, saying that they'd be making both types of games, NOT that they'd be making a game that is both. And that was in 2010, well before the 3DS even released. I never said that they announced the 2D Mario game, I said that they announced that one is on the way. Miyamoto himself said "When asked 'what will we do on 3DS,' the answer is, of course, we'll make both. They both have their own appeal." - there is NO way to validly interpret that as "We will make a Mario game that is 3D Mario, but also 2D Mario at the same time". But hey, Malstrom can't be wrong, can he?

2. He wasn't vocal about them, he was obsessed. Every time Nintendo announced a new title, he would try to twist it to show why it proves that Nintendo is focusing on user-generated content. And pretty much every time, he was wrong. It's very easy to point at games that perform poorly, and shout "User-generated content"... which is precisely what he did. Too bad there wasn't user-generated content in those games. And no, the wait period for 3D Mario fans wasn't hyperbole. How do I know? Because he said it repeatedly, in a variety of contexts, and never once suggested anything more reasonable. It's easy to dismiss extreme statements as hyperbole when they occur once and make sense in context.

3. Oh, I'm shocked he even referred to them. Now for the fun part, though. How do you think he would respond if there was a rumour that there would be a 3D Mario at the WiiU launch? I can tell you right now - he'd say that it proves that Nintendo is on the wrong track. Rumour says 2D Mario = not substantial. Rumour says 3D Mario = proof Nintendo is going to die. This is his general pattern since late 2008 - if it's what he wants Nintendo to do, then it must be unsubstantiated rumour, but if it's what he doesn't want Nintendo to do, then it's proof that Nintendo will die.

4. Actually, the only thing that 3D Land didn't address was being 3D. When it comes down to it, Malstrom hates 3D gaming with a passion. It shows through EVERY single thing he has to say that even remotely touches on the topic. He hates 3D Zelda. He hates 3D Mario. The only reason he still likes the Wii Sports/Play/etc games is because you don't actually control 3D movement. Think I'm wrong? Name a game he has expressed happiness with that has had 3D gameplay.

Meanwhile, he abandoned Disruption and Blue Ocean Strategy because he didn't like where it was taking Nintendo, anymore. His complaints shifted - it all became "they're not arcade anymore" and "they focus too much on 3D gaming". If Nintendo were the ones to shift away from Disruption and Blue Ocean, Malstrom would have criticised THAT, and spoken about what Nintendo *should* have done in terms of disruption and blue ocean. He didn't. He ranted constantly about "arcade gameplay" and "3D Mario must die" and "user-generated content"... and when I pointed this shift out to Malstrom's supporters (I had been one, up to that point), I was derided and called all sorts of things.

Malstrom himself has said, in the past, that he pays attention to Nintendo because of what he can learn from them. So why is he still paying attention to them, if they're no longer doing the stuff he wants to learn? Because when it comes down to it, it was never truly disruption or blue ocean strategy that attracted his attention to Nintendo. It was that Nintendo had put more focus into games like Wii Sports, which make him think of the "old" games that he used to like. Now, I loved Wii Sports, but I also loved Super Mario Galaxy. It is healthy to have diverse interests and to see value in variety. Malstrom doesn't. He takes every game that isn't "arcade" to be an affront, and it shines through in all of his writing, once he stopped talking about disruption and blue ocean.

But somehow, I'm not surprised that you couldn't accept a single criticism of Malstrom. And for the record, when I started criticising Malstrom, I also pointed out the few points he was right on, and I also pointed out what I think the real issues with Nintendo are... Malstrom's fervent supporters proclaimed me a Nintendo fanboy for not agreeing with Malstrom now. I eventually started to refer to those supporters (and I suspect you to be one) as "Anti-hardcore"... in the sense that they are hardcore, just in the opposite way. Just as the hardcore condemn "casual gaming", etc, so too do the anti-hardcore condemn "hardcore gaming". And Malstrom is the king of the anti-hardcore. And as I've said before, it's too bad, because he used to actually make a lot of sense, until he decided that arcade gameplay was more important than anything else.

It's a very delicate balance. If you release 3 sequels on a system, you may not sell as much, but at least ensure the consumer interest in your system. Look at Uncharted, it's a perfect example of a healthy series that enjoyed 3-fold the sales due to 3-peat. Mind you, Uncharted 2 did cut Uncharted 1 on its  legs, but Uncharted isn't really a very leggy series so it doesn't count as much.

NSMB is a VERY different animal. It is super leggy. A sequel would have been affected by the canibalization of the first entry. This happened for Skyward Sword, it happened for Galaxy 2, and it generally happens for Nintendo's franchise, by their leggy nature.

I think you're right, NSMB would not have multiplied sales due to the nature of the series. But it would have ensured interest in the Wii. AT THE SAME TIME, if not handled properly, it could cause consumer fatigue and disinterest (it is not very much like Uncharted in that sense, which can release episodes without fatiguing consumer purchase). The Mario series CAN be over-released, so 2 is almost a maximum within a generation, especially if there is little to no evolution, and THAT is something that is typical of a traditional type of release (like a revival game for example).

RolStoppable said:

 Personally, as a Nintendo fan, I find it insane that there are actually Nintendo fans who disagree with the notion that Nintendo needs to make more Super Mario Bros. games.

Iwata says that the 3DS hardware is the main culprit for their financial situation.

Since Nintendo was forced to run their business at a loss and based on the fact that software sells hardware, it's logical that the 3DS lineup in 2011 wasn't sufficient to achieve the desired results (good sales and profits).

Nintendo's flagship games are supposed to have good legs and sell for months or even years, so looking at a single week of sales to determine the value of these games is most definitely the wrong way to go about this. Especially when the release of Super Mario 3D Land coincides with the start of the holiday sales.

All your evidence is faulty. The DS didn't have flagship 2D games during its first year which is why its sales weren't good. Super Mario 64 DS was the flagship game along with a Metroid Prime Hunters demo, accompanied by mostly gimmicky touchscreen games like Pokémon Dash and Yoshi Touch & Go that hardly anybody remembers nowadays. Additionally, I have once again to point out that the 3DS business was run at a heavy loss while the DS was profitable during its first year. It's no achievement to have higher sales when you are losing money.

My evidence that Super Mario 3D Land failed to do its job are the poor 3DS sales we see each and every week in America and Europe. Nintendo must have had higher expectations for this game, because if they hadn't, they would be a poor business.