No way? OK, then try to persuade your mom or uncle to play some Halo with you, and then we can talk about niche. And my point was Mario rather than Halo. If I hurt some feelings (as it looks from some comments) let's just say that NSMB:Wii appeal is much more universal. Much much much much more. Does it sound more confortable so you can agree now?

niche implies small market. The Halo Market (while it may not include grandma and grandpa) is in no way small. By your logic anything not made by Nintendo is Niche

Huh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niche_market

The market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact.

A niche game is something that has a setting, gameplay feature or ideals that do not appeal to a wide set of gamers... this is the games industry after all... and FPS is a very mainstream gamer genre.

If we start using niche and universal as if the whole world has a gaming console then every game will be niche.

Deadly Creatures is a niche game because you play as a spider and a scorpion, it appeals to a very small subset of gamers and puts almost everybody else off.

If you are going to use that as you defense for saying that Halo is a niche market, then your original point of one being in a niche market while the other is not is entirely mute. By your link's defenition, every single game has a niche market because it is specifically targeted. 2D Mario is marketed to Mario fans and 2D platforming fans. While Halo is marketed to 3D FPS gaming fans. They both have thier own niche.

We all know that.

NSMBWii > Halo 3

Also,
offline multiplayer is way more fun than online multiplayer,
despite being harder to gather 3 more people offline than online.

EDIT: This is not an excuse for NSMBWii lack of online support, which should be there with no doubt.

NSMB Wii is better than most all games out there for being a game near anyone can play. If Hardcore games were movies, the hardcore movies would be a badly degraded VHS whilst the casual movie would be pristine Blu Ray. Noone can really argue that pristine Blu Ray generally gives a better quality of experience even if you love that degraded VHS to death.

1) This sounds like a tautology, so it can't be really discussed. You really should ask yourself the question WHY all these people loves 2D Mario to death? Are they really fans of him being plumber and in 2D? xD

2) This is more debatable point, and from my perspective Mario stands above 2D platforming because not only fans of the genre can be interested in the game. Tons of people don't care about N+, LBP, Braid, Xplosion Man or whatever recent New Age of platforming brought us, and still stand very interested in Mario. While almost nobody outside FPS crowd really care about Halo, if we are to continue <that vs. Mario thread.