@Bananaking21 you just wrote an entire paragraph about how mario games are terrible because they did not change story. You judge a mario game on story?STORY? You judge a game on gameplay but because of people like you who belive story is important video games to me are no longer fun. This is a video game not a t.v. show or movie.

Maybe Pikmin 3 has garnered more interest because it's something fresh from Nintendo. Sure, it's not a new IP, I do notice the "3" in the title, but it's fairly new and hasn't had countless predeccessors, or it's main character(s) hasn't stared in countless other games.

OT: Personally, I just find Mario completely uninteresting, and I can't see why anyone over the age of 12 doesn't feel the same unless they're just nostalgic. Nintendo doesn't seem to be doing anything meaningful (to the gamer) with the Character, he's pretty just a money-maker. E.g. What does Mario have to do with Tennis? Something like Super Mario Galaxy could of been a new IP, but it was a Mario game because they played it safe and knew it would sell a ton. Now, that's a great business decision, but for someone like me, seeing Mario plastered across the title of a gazilion different games is tiresome.

You just reminded me, there are 10 Mario games in 2 years since the 9 didn't include Paper Mario (which actually has a pretty good story to it usually). 

Andrespetmonkey
lol, thats funny, cause i feel the same with all the magnificent new IPs Sony and Msoft brought this gen, not interesting at all, and generic to the limit, with characters full of cliches and bad design choices (Marcus, Master chief, Drake, all of them really boring and generic)
Mario its just an excuse to pull some amazingly well balanced gameplay...

I think it's mostly because he appears on too many games, whereas other franchise characters only appear once every three years or something. Mario's versatility makes him able to appear in any genre he chooses. In my opinion, Nintendo just uses Mario as a recognizable face for whatever gameplay mechanics they want to explore in their games, since the story is rarely the reason we buy into Mario games.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the guys at Naughty Dog seriously hate Nintendo because how adamant they are about story in video games, yet Mario games counter that philosophy entirely. It was a good laugh.

I don't see why having a familiar face in a game is a bad thing.  Just because they're riding on the characters popularity shouldn't mean it's bad.  They have every right to do so, and it gets people into different types of gaming, so I think other gaming companies should be grateful that Nintendo has opened up a lot of other gamers that wouldn't have otherwise tried games like Sports or RPG's.  

in terms of gameplay? no mario isnt generic. in terms of story, charecters, story telling, art style and music mario is the most generic game in the world, why? because the same thing has been used for the 30 years. honestly mario has the WORST story in video games now days. i feel sad for you if you think otherwise

WRONG!  Story maybe for some Mario games, as there really isn't a story in most of them, but art style has changed a LOT throughout its lifetime and rarely is same.  They reinvent the graphics style with almost every mario release, and the music may stay the same on many of them, but some of them introduce completely new music.  So I think you're biased against Mario in that you only listen to what you hear people saying about the game without looking it into yourself.  You cloud your own judgement in such ways.

Story? Mario doesnt even has a story
Art style? I think Mario Galaxy has an amazing art, much more interesting that the generic hiperrealism...
Have you played Mario world 2?
if you want a atory go to the movies

You're kidding right? The first three again are about story which if you have payed attention does not make a video game and the art style/music changes ever single game with varation all over.