I wouldn't contribute that to Bond being more popular as an IP; I'd contribute that to films making more money as a medium on the whole now than in the 90s.

Goldeneye was successful because it worked, not because it was "cool." Console shooters weren't exactly known for that before Goldeneye. Now, they pretty much all work. It holds up terribly now, unlike other games of that era.

No, Bond is cool and will always be cool. You can't buy that or fake it (Hollywood has tried many times to ape the formula). Bond has been big in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010s. 

I remember suggesting Banjo-Kazooie to my friend who had just bought his N64 around '98, primarily for GoldenEye, and he burst out laughing saying "what the f*ck is Banjo-Kazooie? I'm not playing that".

Bond brought in a different audience to the N64 in the 90s because Bond as a character has appeal that a mascot/cartoon simply can't. But it fit Nintendo so well, it was basically the same thrill of Mario Kart multiplayer just wrapped in a world that was acceptable to teenagers and adults. 

The wonderful thing about Bond is his cross-demographic appeal is through the roof. Kids can like Bond and not upset their parents ("oh look honey isn't that cute, little Johnny thinks he's James Bond") but he passes the "most jaded teenager I'm not playing some stupid kids game with rainbows in it" test too as to what's cool. It really was a godsend for Nintendo. 

I never said he wasn't cool. I said that he's now a more cared about IP now. Not by a long shot.

And a Bond game now, no matter how good, wouldn't servive as a multiplayer shooter today. It would either completely go against what Bond is, get burried under all the other more relevant shooters that have now emerged, or it would just stay single player. If Nintendo wants to bring in an older audience, they need something else. Bond, no matter how "cool," doesn't come close to cutting it. Not in this day.

Could we see Mario and friends in a sequel?  Mario has all kinds of different hats, why not a squid suit that allows he and friends to travel like the characters in Splatoon?

That said, I hope they don't go that route, Mario has never been my favorite mascot, but I don't think you're wrong (not sure about half, but your general point is likely correct)

Nah I think his presence is still missing sorely from Nintendo consoles. Mario Kart is fun, but it's a bit too sugary. After about an hour of Mario Kart and Nintendo Land multi, you just want to blast your friends head off in a multiplayer game. I get it. I'm not a "dudebros" player, but sometimes I get what they're saying when they're down playing Nintendo platforms. 

This is one reason why Nintendo isn't scratching the itch many gamers have ... their competetive games are fun, but sometimes the context of the game matters. Bond was the perfect context for Nintendo's multiplayer concept, it was already Mario Kart for teenagers and adults. 

You know that when you got your boys coming over, lets fire up GoldenEye, and play until 3 AM type thing ... Nintendo has sorely, sorely missed that. 

That's also the problem with things like Metroid Prime and Zombi U that have kinda tried to fill that void ... Bond had the multiplayer aspect that they don't have. 

GoldenEye is still being paid homage to even in modern pop culture. Jimmy Fallon played it with Pierce Brosnan just a few months ago and that wasn't a Nintendo sponsored segment either. There's a fun little FPS GoldenEye homage in the new Kingsman movie too that caused a bit of a laugh in the theater I was in.

Except that Mario Kart is one of biggest racers of all time while I expect Splatoon to be a less than modest success. We already have Ratchet & Clank being a major force, I doubt another cartoony shooter can usurp it.

I hope it does. It has that classic Nintendo feel for me, and I hope it sees success.

A large part of Goldeneye's success was that it was pretty new to consoles. FPS really weren't much of a thing on consoles back then, which is why Goldeneye was so big. While the license did have some weight, the novelty is lost, so you can't really expect it to hold even an ounce of the same impact as it used to.

In order to capture the same fire, Nintendo would have to find some other genre to pioneer, and I don't think the current landscape is as suitable for that as it used to be.

Has nothing to do with Bond. Nintendo needs any mature western IP. Doesn't need to be a shooter and doesn't need to be an established IP. The original Goldeneye is only relevant in the way that something like Mario NES is. Paying homage to it doesn't mean that people are itching for a new one or Goldeneye Reloaded, which was well recieved, would have sold better. It's only relevant as a time capsule.

Well, hopefully everything will turn out just fine with Splatoon!