How does whether or not you play a game indicate it's level of being milked. My point was there are like 6 Megman games on DS. The Megaman franchise went portable because the 3D translation of Megaman didn't work.

To be fair, the last Mega Man game released was last November. "lately" (5-6 months) is probably pretty fair.

Mega Man wins by a landslide. Not only did they do the most milking, but they had the least amount of changes between games.

What are the differences between Mega Man 1 through 6 on the NES? How many games had 6 installments on the NES? We had 3 Marios, 3 Castlevanias, 2 Contras, 3 Dragon Quests, 3 Final Fantasies, and I can't think of any franchises that got 4 or 5 NES installments off the top of my head. Can anybody else? I'm just drawing a blank, but right now off the top of my head it looks like at its debut it doubled the other big NES franchises.

Sonic is a close 2nd. Mario's been around since 1981, Mega Man's been around since 1987, and Sonic's been around since 1991. Both Mega Man and Sonic already have more games than Mario, whether you count only main franchise games or all cameos and spin-offs.

Mario games all have huge differences. SMB1, 2, and 3 are all completely different. 2 had vegetable picking/throwing, superjumps, character selections, and that crazy potion dimension. 3 had flight, different suits (tanuki, hammer bros., raccoon, frog), giant land, pipe land, a world map, and multiplayer minigames.

To say Mario was milked more than Mega Man is just... insane. Please, somebody provide a serious argument that does so, so I can utterly destroy it.

(Also, just so you all know, I've played both Mario Strikers and Mega Man Soccer to their completion. This is very important for my credibility.)

Sliding, Charge shots, Rush Spring/Jet/Armor, Beat, Protoman...etc. Every game also had 8 new bosses and weapon power-ups (minus the original). Mario is still using the same mushrooms he used in 1989.

Go play the original Megaman game then go play Megaman 6. They play very differently.

 The question is... which did you perfer?  Megaman Soccer was more of a "core" soccer expierence with the special shots being extra... much like an SNES version game of World Cup Soccer.  The Singleplayer mode where you can beat robot masters to get them on your team was pretty awesome.  Also it had a great story!

Meanwhile while less "core" soccer Mario Strikers added in a lot of what made Mario Kart so much fun, and made it a crazy higher pased, higher scoring anything can happen at any time expierence... and it had Shy Guys. 

@Kasz:  No comment on my correction to your correction of kingofwale?

 Let's count the number of Mario game on DS shall we?

*Mario Party DS
* Mario and Sonic
*Itadaki Street DS
*Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis
*Yoshi's Island DS
*Game & Watch Collection
*New Super Mario Bros.
*Mario Hoops 3-on-3
*Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis
*Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
*Mario Kart DS
*Super Princess Peach

The slide was added in 3, and the charge shot was added in 4.
The item power-ups were added in 2 and replaced with Rush in 3.
Otuside of those.... nothing changed. I have all the Mega Man games and love them.

ProtoMan and bosses don't count. I'm not counting Wart, Birdo, and the Koopa Kids as new gameplay elements.

 I kinda think the inovation tapered off towards 5 and 6 honestly.  That's probably one reason why 2,3 and 4 see more time in my NES rotation.  1 sees about as much time as 5 and 6 for me.

 Not really, it's basically just a difference of opinion on the word lately.