I would say Halo.

Without Halo, I think the Xbox brand is dead in the water. It's by far the franchise that carries the division and it's not one that can easily be replicated.

As far as Nintendo and Mario goes, however, I know it would hurt to lose the IP, but that's mostly because of character recognition. It's not like there is any real depth behind it. They could start over with the tales of an Irish miner or a French bread maker. It would take them awhile to build the universe, of course, but who really cares about that? Who plays Mario games because of Mario, anyway? The story and characters aren't really that important.

Which would you rather play, a Mario clone from Nintendo or a Mario game made by Activision or Sega?

Btw. it's very good for Sony that a single lost franchise can't hurt their gaming business as much as a single lost franchise could hurt Nintendo or MS, shows that they don't have all their eggs in one basket.

Still, hopefully they'll manage to get a couple new multimillion seller franchises this gen with the help of the PS4s success, I mean something like 4 but ideally 5 million plus sellers, I've yet to see one that could become something like that from them this gen. I used to think the Order might do it, but I'm doubting that by now. Though WiLD might actually become something like that, since I have a feeling that this might really become a hit, but that's really too early to tell.

The story and characters may not be important but what is important is the content and nothing can replace the fat italian plumber that we all know and love. There's no guarantee that Nintendo could make a just as iconic character as Mario. You'd be surprised but a lot of people play games for the content too so no Mario in a Mario game can be a deal breaker hence why Mario clones do not succeed ... 

Of course Mario... without him Nintendo wouldn't be where it is now

Take away Mario IP from Nintendo and they are dead. Mario is their bread and butter. Lose Mario Kart, lose Mario 2D and 3D games, lose Mario Sports games, lose all Mario universe characters in Super Smash Bros., lose Mario collaborations like Mario & Sonic, lose all Mario related toy and clothing sales.

Losing Mario is like Nintendo taking a bullet to the brain. To many, Mario IS Nintendo. Ask someone if they know about Nintendo, many will instantly associate them with Mario. Nintendo also does not have strong 3rd party support to keep them alive either.



Halo. MS' biggest IP is Halo no doubt. However I think they survive without it due to strong 3rd party support and people still buy it for other shooters and no doubt more so. Think Call of Duty.

Will MS be as strong? No, but they would live.


Uncharted. If Sony lost Uncharted would they live? Of course they would. They plan to end the series anyways. Sony never truly relied on a series to survive. Sony has a habit of making something really good and then just killing it off to start something new.

So would Sony be in a bad spot if they lost Uncharted? Not really.

Right now I think Sony could pull off not having Uncharted. MS on the other hand surely wouldn't have a leg to stand on without Halo now when they need sales more than ever. Nintendo is in a similar situation since MK8 is the only thing moving consoles.

Microsoft would be dead without Halo. Nintendo has a lot of other franchises and is already dead anyway so it would not matter. Sony does not need Uncharted at all.

Nintendo of course, (Mario is the BIGGEST video game character in History).

Then next would be Microsoft with Halo being their lead game for EVERY generation

And then finally Playstation, who would be the less affected one not (necessarily) just because Uncharted isnt as big as the other two, but also because Playstation is really good at creating NEW IPS, in fact every generation Sonys Biggest games are generaly new IPS:

PS: Crash, Gran Turismo, Medievil, The Legend of Dragoon etc
PS2: God of War, Killzone, Shadow of the Collosus, Ico, Jack and Daxter etc
PS3: Uncharted, The Last of Us, Infamous, Little Big Planet, Demons Souls etc.
PS4: Driveclub, Bloodborne, The Order 1886 etc.

I don't think Uncharted is even in the same realm of importance to Sony as Halo and Mario are to MS and Nintendo. MC and Mario are mascots for xbox and nintendo known throughout the world in a way Nathan Drake just isn't and I really can't even say for any degree of certainty that Nintendo wouldn't be like Sega now with MS out of the gaming industry altogether if halo and mario were brought away.

sony relies on a bevy of exclusives all appealing to different people or convincing someone out of that variety on their system.  thus no one exclusive is too important because everyone seems to buy it for a different one.  So yes they're important but Uncharted isn't essential (why ND always makes a new franchise with a new gen)