Nintendo doesn't do remakes very often, releases only one or occasionally two games of their main series per generation and only makes high quality games.

In my opinion milking isn't continuing on a franchise for a long time it is remaking or porting games over and over and making shitty spin-offs that sell on name alone.


The only example of Nintendo actually milking that I can think of is Mario Party.

Mario Party has been milked dry, yes. But we get one or maybe two Mario, Mario Kart, Smash Bros., Metroid or Zelda console games per generation. For handhelds, it's about the same, although there's slightly greater volume there. Ditto for the Mario sports games, which in no way can be counted as simply "Mario" titles, but only as a unique series for each sport.

Hell, they're not "milking" it enough for my tastes. I want a damned Mario Tennis game, right now.

sc94597 said: O-D-C said: how is Nintendo milking Zelda and Metroid? like when a new game from either series is released its the biggest gaming news for some people, so how is it milking, unless they release, Zelda Party or Metroid  Tennis Kart games.

 

 haha

Mario is definitely a milked character, but Zelda?

If FinalFantasy only had the main games it wouldn't be a milked franchises. It's all the Remakes, spin offs etc.

Zelda has exactly 1 spin off: Crossbow Training. Metroid has only main games

By the way, I would personally kill the person in charge at Nintendo if I didn't get a new Zelda once every while. And the series has been consistently of the absolute highest possible quality. I don't think there's a series that has scored so high for all its games.

I don't care if they milk it as long as the games are good wich they are 4 times out of 5.

RolStoppable said: Square-Enix releases tons of remakes, Nintendo does not.

This is what I think separates SE from all the others in the "milking" category. They don't just continue to rely on the same franchises, they actually rerelease (and often rererelase, in the case of many FF games) many of their games again. In a general sense, all companies milk their franchises, if we think of "milking" as "continuing to create sequel after sequel." CoD FIVE comes out this year. Metal Gear Solid FOUR just came out (plus the remake on the Gamecube and side games on the PSP). Madden is in its 16th year. I don't think Nintendo is any better than most in this regard, but I do think Square Enix stands above everyone else because of their consistent reliance on just a few major franchises (DQ, KH, FF) and their rabbid adherence to remaking their games over and over again. But I do agree, Original Poster, that Square Enix isn't alone in milking franchises, and people who try to single out individual companies are just lashing out. Everybody does it, even if I'd argue SE does it more than most.

Mario is a brand name now, not a franchise. Who care if Nintendo makes some game and then slaps the Mario name on it? It's an easily recognizable brand, so a Mario game is guaranteed to sell a bunch of copies.

Furthermore, how many Mario games come out per generation? One since the N64, and two this generation due to NSMB. How many Zelda games? Two or three. Metroid? Two.

Now compare that to how many Final Fantasy games were released just last year: 12. Yes, twelve. Granted, some of those are re-releases with a bit of new stuff on them, but still. Twelve Final Fantasy releases in a year alone, pretty much all of them some form of JRPG. For comparison's sake, Nintendo only released six Mario-branded games in the same year (if you count Mario & Sonic) - and that includes offerings as diverse as Mario Party, the Mario Sports titles, and - of course - SMG. Which one is milking which franchise, now?

@Rol---i will drink to that

Esmoreit said: They way I see it is that "milking" ends up running down the property you milk. Kinda like how a land becomes less fertile the more you use it for crops etc. I don't think S-E milks but if I may take some other game, Tomb Raider then yes, I consider it milking. After the first two games, the value deluded. Number one was fresh, was great and number 2 perfected the standard of number one. After that, the tomb Raider lands got less and less fertile as the only upgrades where in the graphical deprtament. Nintendo on the other hand keeps their lands fresh by adding, and having a quality standard. Mario Galaxy might be the last Mario adventure in a long line of mario adventures and people might consider it milking because of that. Now let's say we put Crash Bandicoot or a new character in there, without 'tude... I'd say it would have still rated as high.

The bolded statement is a very good definition for the mercurial concept of "milking"--if the game still feels fresh and new then there probably isn't any udder-chapping going on; if it feels old and tired then it's probably time to give the IP, gameplay, etc. a rest.

That's because it is popular to hate on SquareEnix right now, don't ask why, it just is. It is kind of popular to hate on Nintendo since they sell hardware almost as fast as they can make it, but that is mostly among the press and fan boys. Don't worry though, after SE releases all the games that look great from what we know that they have lined up all the hate will go away. For a while. And then the people will crop back up with the nostalgia about the good ol' days with nes/snes.