Besides lack of marketing push I think the problem is competition and expectatives. LBP sold great for a kiddie friendly platformer a genre with not much competition on PS3 (besides the ocasional Pixar movie tie-in and Ratchet and Clank which is more combat shooter focused).

We didn't get Gears but we got Uncharted so it did well, Killzone didn't sold in the 5-7Million range because everyone was busy playing COD and Halo 3, Grand Turismo still doesn't have any real competition on PS3 and will probably sell 8M at the end of the year. Twisted Metal has sold half a million units so far and will probably reach 1M in a year but thats expected from the car combat genre if Sony expected to sell 3M units of TM then they are fools (I don't think they did but who knows).

Sony had a good thing going with Resistance (which had no competition on PS3 when it launched) but instead of improving it they change it too much and went in a diferent direction for the sequel.

Wait...whats your point again?

At Stage: Competition and expectatives.

A gross misunderstanding of the Nintendo franchise. Mario is not popular because of a cartoon but because of his roots and Nintendo fanboys. Nintendo have the most die hard supporters and they will buy whatever spiel Nintendo shovel out because it has the Nintendo label of approval on it. This is an impenetrable and unsustainable market that should be ignored, not imitated. Once these guys grow up and leave Nintendo behind them, Nintendo will not have a new audience as their games were focused on satisfying fan's needs for franchise titles, which to the outsider are a steaming pile of dated garbage. Therefore Nintendo are not a sustainable market, and that is not a position any company with sense wants to emulate.

The problem with Sony's exclusives is that they just aren't special enough. Killzone 1 was meh, and 2 didn't have strong enough characters. Whilst I loved the MP, many didn't. Nathan Drake is nothing special and MGS stopped pretty much on release of the PS3. Sony could have been onto a winner with Trico but that's looking more and more like vapourware, and if it does emerge, it'll probably horribly dated. After SotC Sony really should have pushed a more arty unique angle but tried going mainstream which just help it get lost in the multiplatform cavalcade of medicority that has been this generation. 

Killzone franchise sells in the spring where as Halo and COD both sell in the fall so we're just talking about your preference rather than how Halo is killing Killzones sales. Second of all if Gears is synonymous but it isn't owned by Microsoft so they aren't in the argument.  The Uncharted franchise in three games have sold over seventeen million copies, which is amazing for a new IP in a generation without massive commercialization on par with Nintendo characters. God of War is in the near 20 million region and has no competition in the hack n slash genre (which is crazy for a hack n slash...just saying). GT has no equal in sales in the race car simulation genre. The ratings are there and PS3 games are high on the list. Whenever you go on Amazon theres a top 40 PS3 list and its largely exclusives with multiplats. If you did it for the Xbox it would be drowned out by multiplats because of their lack of exclusives. Sony has plenty of first party games with mass market potential for various audiences...but are not good at marketing them properly, so they will fall by the wayside. You would be surprised how much the psychology of marketing can affect the consumer psyche. 

I never stated Nintendo gained major support because of it, but rather focused on the expansion of knowledge of the icons and familiarized them with the general public. I said in the 80's and 90's which is when the franchise was amazingly huge and the shows gained great ratings on saturday morning cartoons. Of course I never saw the mario or zelda show myself but I remember Sonic, Street Fighter and short lived Mortal Kombat saturday morning cartoons in the 90's. It helped endear children to the product and when they hear a themesong or catch phrase it becomes party of the English language so to speak. I can't speak for the rest of the world, only America. Anyway, Super Mario games were mostly bundled with Nintendo so people gained their first look at Mario by chance just as any non-gamer can recollect duck hunt if they are old enough. Mario stuck with people because Nintendo kept it fresh in the mind of gamers and casuals alike.

This is a chicken and egg argument with less mystery; we know the games spawned the cartoons, not viceversa. In terms of marketting the cartoons would be cashing in on the games, not acting as advertising; the games were already popular enough to spawn cartoons. 
Mario stuck with people because it was a good platforming game for a long time, same with Sonic etc. The cartoons were merely icing on a cake made of money. 

Question. Where are you from? Because in America Saturday morning cartoons lead to record breaking sales of Toys and videogames alike. Even if you dont see it, the commercial effect of it in that time (late 80's- early 90's) was huge. I'm not saying give it major credit because the majority of the credit goes to bundling, but the cartoon endeared it to children and families on saturday mornings.

You got figures to back that up? More specifically, you got figures to back up the idea that game cartoons helped increase game sales? The only game which certainly had a postitive effect from the cartoon was pokemon, but the cartoon came before the game, not the other way around.

Where are you from? Again.