Aielyn 13 hours ago

"So you're saying that Nintendo should stop making new Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, Kirby, Pikmin, F-Zero, Wave Race, 1080, Wario, Yoshi, Luigi's Mansion, Rhythm, Mario Sports, Mario Party, Paper Mario, Kid Icarus, Golden Sun, etc games? After all, all of what I just listed sell poorly compared with 3D Mario, so if you're going to reject 3D Mario on the basis of sales, all of these need to go, too.

Alternatively, you can recognise that, if Nintendo released a new 2D Mario game every single year on a console, 2D Mario would end up selling very poorly after a few iterations. Nintendo needs a broad variety of games in a broad variety of genres, including a variety of experiences within the same franchises in some cases. 3D Mario appeals to some people to whom 2D Mario doesn't appeal. More generally, Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy both broke the 10 million unit mark - a mark that has only been broken by 46 games ever.

And Super Mario 3D Land, which is a 3D Mario game (of course), is following the sales pattern seen with Super Mario Galaxy - released in November, over 4 million in its first holiday season (4.2 million for Galaxy, 4.6 million for 3D Land). Galaxy sold 2.9 million in 2008, and 3D Land is currently at 1.5 million in 2012 (factoring in the holiday boost, a 2012 total of 3.5 million isn't impossible). Based on sales patterns, an eventual total of 15 million or more isn't out of the realm of possibility.

It simply doesn't make sense for Nintendo to stop making 3D Mario games, no matter how much you may dislike it."

WOW! rolax man, if you bothered to read my previous comment, you would have noticed 3D Mario games make me wet my pants badly, i was just saying that from a bussines perspective makes much more sense to push 2D Mario than 3D Mario, is simple logic you now
3D Mario games always sell very well, but 2D Marios are the best selling games of all time...
i personally like more 3D Mario btw...

I hope so. 64 Mario is One of the best ever made. Add that to Galaxy and you have the formula for perfection.

For me mario64 was the best maria I have ever played ... so many good memories

But I doubt we will see anything like this again :(
I hope I'm wrong and we will see a mario u in the future which would be awesome.

Eh, for the record I disliked (which means still alright) Galaxy 2.  But for the Galaxy games I feel the point of the sphere was to be able to cover a lot of ground without actually going anywhere and straying too far off course so it achieved the goal of a linear exploration game.  I mean there were def. instances of having to check on the other side of a planet etc. I mean you can't totally deny that.

For everyone thinking about a new 3d Mario, in one of the recent E3 interviews (forget who), the developer for nsmb2 on 3DS mentioned that the "two pillars" of Mario are 2d and 3d when questioned by Iwata.  He would not have said this if 3d Mario were dead.  If nsmb2 sells bad I think we can expect 3d Mario on 3DS.  If it sells great I think it's possible it could end up on Wii U.  But honestly, it'll probably stay on 3DS, I mean that is the be-all 3d console.  the 2d games on Wii were some of the best selling games, I see Wii and Wii U as the nes NES and SNES.

The best Maria I've ever played was Final Fantasy II's Maria.

And I think she was the only one too, unless you count Celes impersonating Maria in FF6's Opera. Then she's the best.

Mario is a system-seller. Therefore, userbase isn't relevant to it, as it would be to, say, Madden 10.

If Super Mario Sunshine was a better seller than NSMB Wii, then it would have sold 30 million Gamecubes. 3D Mario simply doesn't sell as well as 2D Mario. And that's fine - if, as I noted before, Nintendo only made the games that sell exceptionally well, the systems wouldn't have very many quality first-party games, and wouldn't sell as well. Nintendo needs to ensure variety, and 3D Mario is important towards that.

If 2D Mario had been on the Gamecube, there's a strong chance that it (the gamecube) would have sold over 30 million units.

They should, but I'm afraid that they won't. Super Mario 64 was a lot less linear than the Galaxy games and involved heavy exploration (each level had 6 stars - I believe). The Galaxy games are more like the 2D games where it's all about getting from point A to point B. SM64 interested me more than these games because it was a brand new take on Mario which worked to perfection. Now you get a game like Super Mario 3D Land that tries to be the best of both worlds and winds up not being that great at either.

I miss M64, DK64 and BK style games.

I wonder if those 3d exploration games will start to come en masse since the 3ds to me is a portable gamecube.

Again, I feel like the Home console and the portable devices have switched places. The home consoles now have the casual games and the 3DS is pulling in a more hardcore crowd.