Intelligent Systems is a part of Nintendo. They make a lot of strategy games, and are perhaps the greatest at that.

Their main franchises are

Paper Mario
Fire Emblem
Advance Wars
Wario Ware
Mario Kart GBA

And a few more from before N64 era, which aren't really important, plus some small games.

For this generation, they have made

For Wii:

Fire Emblem: RD - 530K
Super Paper Mario - 2.43M
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves - 2.35M

For DS:

Advance Wars: Dual Strike - 340K
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin - 250K
Wario Ware: Touched - 2.22M
Fire Emblem DS - 250K Japan, lifetime there could make 500K.
Planet Puzzle League - 350K

A  more complete list of  its games is here: http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?name=&console=&region=All&developer=intelligent+Systems&publisher=&genre=&keyword=&boxart=Both&results=50&order=Hits

So, what do you think of those franchises / games?

EDIT: Okay, everything in the post dissapeared. Luckily, I copied and pasted halfway through. My personal feeling dissapeared, but they aren't all that important.

personal favorite developer

I think their games are awesome... well except for SPM =/

love fire emblem... but aside from that i haven't played any of their other franchises.

however i have been meaning to play advance wars when i get my new ds

I love strategy games, especially ones with RPG elements like Fire Emblem and Paper Mario. Thumbs up on all fronts considering I own almost all of those games. :D

Intelligent Systems is a great studio i just wish Nintendo would give them higher budgets for their games, when you look at most of their games they are excellent, but you can tell the dev costs are extremely low (FE:RD for example). I think if they had budgets as high as Mario and Zelda, the game quality would be unsurpassed.

Well I haven't played any Fire Emblem or Advance Wars games, but Wario Ware Smooth Moves was pretty good (yet short) and I played Mario Kart on the GBA to death. Paper Mario (especially TTYD) games on the other hand have all been great although I was disappointed with SPM. I still have to finish the original though....

Anyway, I really hope they are working on another Paper Mario title for Wii that is an actual RPG.

Intelligent Systems is my favorite internal developer for Nintendo, and Radiant Dawn one of, if not my favorite game this gen.

pichu_pichu said: personal favorite developer I think their games are awesome... well except for SPM =/

 Yeah, I might agree on favourite dev, they're at least top 5.

Fire Emblem is simply awesome. I'm playing Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance atm. Well, I've finished SS, but am doing a second run through on hard, using only certain characters. SS and RD are the two best strategy games I've played by far. PoR is fairly close, with an amazing story and marvellous overall, but falls a tiny bit short of them.

FE: DS is my most hyped game of the year 2008, so I'm hoping it comes out in 08

I played the original Paper Mario on VC, and wasn't shockingly amazed. Well, I played it for 30 hours, but then I stopped. One of the best traditional TB games, but gets a bit repetitive. I'm considering to get SPM when I get it for lower price.

Advance Wars is good, but not great. The battles get a bit drawn out, and making units make it a bit less strategic and a bit more just doing stuff. Nowhere near FE, but still top notch Strategy game.

Haven't played the other franchises.

 No, there's a reason the titles are low budget.

The entire company is at around 100-110 man, and they give out ~ 2.5 games a year. Retro studious has 60-70 people, and they give out ~ 0.5 games each year.

The IS games are made quickly, and do simply not have the same overall quality as Nintendo's main attraction games. They're as fun and good, but they don't have the same polish.

They're making games 3 times pr person than any other Nintendo dev, and 5-6 times faster than most.

I love Fire Emblem and the first 2 Paper Marios. Warioware and Advance Wars are fun too.