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Forums - Nintendo - Mario Kart is Nintendo's most valuable franchise

 

Is Mario Kart the most valuable series in Nintendo's portfolio?

Yes, it's Mario Kart 35 32.71%
 
No, it's still Super Mario 43 40.19%
 
It's gotta be Wii Sports 2 1.87%
 
Ice Climbers, duh 7 6.54%
 
Something else entirely 11 10.28%
 
I'm too drunk/tired to think. Results? 9 8.41%
 
Total:107
Veknoid_Outcast on 03 February 2013
RolStoppable said:
Super Mario Bros. is the most valuable series, because it's the source material for all its spinoffs. Mario Kart is feeding off of it, it's not a series that spawns others or has its original content flow back into other established series of the Mario IP.

I don't know why you mix Super Mario Bros. and 3D Mario in your table, other than showing Nintendo's neglect for their most valuable series.

Well, I mix the two because they belong to the same series: Super Mario. I would have included New Super Mario Bros. 2 instead of Mario 3D Land in the 3DS comparison but the former has been on the market for fewer months. So it seemed like an inequitable comparison.

You're certainly right that Super Mario has a more important legacy, since it served as inspiration for Mario Kart. And there's no doubt it's sold more units overall. But my hypothesis is that now, in 2013, a new Mario Kart game is more of a system-seller than a new Super Mario game.



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amp316 on 03 February 2013

I think that it was the game that definitely moved the most Wiis besides for Wii Sports.



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DieAppleDie on 03 February 2013

i would say Super Mario and Mario kart tied, closely followed by pokemon, and Donkeykong and Zelda in honourable 4th and 5th....but Animal crossing is growing FAST, it may surpass Zelda and Kong in terms of relevance this gen



cuberandgamer on 03 February 2013

Umm super smash bros? That sold the gamecube



Veknoid_Outcast on 03 February 2013
RolStoppable said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

Well, I mix the two because they belong to the same series: Super Mario. I would have included New Super Mario Bros. 2 instead of Mario 3D Land in the 3DS comparison but the former has been on the market for fewer months. So it seemed like an inequitable comparison.

You're certainly right that Super Mario has a more important legacy, since it served as inspiration for Mario Kart. And there's no doubt it's sold more units overall. But my hypothesis is that now, in 2013, a new Mario Kart game is more of a system-seller than a new Super Mario game.

What's your logic? That they have the word "Super" in common and are platformers? It's quite obvious that they aren't the same series when they sell so differently. If people are able to make a distinction between the Paper Mario series and the Mario & Luigi series (despite both being RPGs), then the same should hold true for Super Mario Bros. and 3D Mario as well.

What criteria do you use to determine what is a better system seller? Since Super Mario 3D Land has sold more copies than Mario Kart 7 so far (and belongs to the historically lower selling series of 3D Mario games), it can't really be sales numbers of the games themselves. Looks more like a case of "the plural of anecdote is data".

They ARE the same series. Mario platform games are a single series. Why separate them? Would you separate A Link to the Past and The Wind Waker into two subcategories?

It's a hypothesis, that's all. It's a combination of sales data -- which demonstrates that Mario Kart is selling better than Mario (as long as you buy into the proposition that the novelty of New Super Mario Bros. skews the figures) -- and anecdotal evidence. I wrote as much in the OP.



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ps3-sales! on 03 February 2013

What's really amazing is the Super Mario U attach rate.



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Veknoid_Outcast on 03 February 2013
RolStoppable said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

They ARE the same series. Mario platform games are a single series. Why separate them? Would you separate A Link to the Past and The Wind Waker into two subcategories?

It's a hypothesis, that's all. It's a combination of sales data -- which demonstrates that Mario Kart is selling better than Mario (as long as you buy into the proposition that the novelty of New Super Mario Bros. skews the figures) -- and anecdotal evidence. I wrote as much in the OP.

Separation makes sense when you are dealing with different kinds of games. Separating ALttP and TWW wouldn't be a bad idea, because the former is much more focused on action (plenty of opportunities to die in dungeons and even on the overworld) while the latter focuses more on puzzle solving with the occasional battle inbetween. Not proposing a split between top-down and 3D Zelda here, because PH and ST would belong into the same category as TWW.

The novelty of the Wii wheel skews the figures in favor of Mario Kart Wii. You must buy into this. You must!

If anything we have far too much separation and compartmentalization in video games. Dividing 2D Mario platform games and 3D Mario platform games is exactly what we don't need. What is the usefulness in dividing up a franchise into these tiny parts based on minutia?



winston000smith on 03 February 2013

It's the most valuable one to me. Mario Kart could sell me a Wii U, just GET RID OF THE BIKES.

That is all.



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ToraTiger on 03 February 2013

It's Super Mario I think. Mario Kart Wii was the first REALLY successful Mario Kart. While all SMB games are amongst the highest selling games.



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freebs2 on 04 February 2013
ToraTiger said:
It's Super Mario I think. Mario Kart Wii was the first REALLY successful Mario Kart. While all SMB games are amongst the highest selling games.

No, actually, with the exception of Super Cricuit for GBA, every Mario Kart iteration was among the best selling games of its generation. Not to mention the insane attach rate already noted by the OT.

-Mario Kart DS at 22.4m copies is the 3rd most sold portable game of its generation, even if you compare it to home console games it was outsold only by COD and a couple of other games.

-MK Double Dash,  was outsold only by Smash Bros Melee, Halo2 and the 7 most popular games on Ps2. (note that Ps2 userbase was more than 7 times larger)

-Mario Kart 64, almost 10m, outsold only by Super Mario 64 and Gran Turismo.

-Super Mario Kart, 8.76m, 4th game on SNES, on Genesis the highest selling is Sonic 2 with 6m copies.