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Nintendo won't annualize Mario Kart/Smash, but use different approaches for other franchises

by rawmeatcowboy
11 August 2015
GN Version 5.0

Coming from Nintendo's Scott Moffitt...

“We tend not to annualize our franchises, there’s not a new Mario Kart every year. What we’ve tried to do with the Wii U is first, create a fully featured really enjoyable game that has something for everybody, has surprises that you’ll discover as you play through levels and it gives you a good amount of quality entertainment.

For fans who love [Mario Kart], we’ve released extra content over time so that it keeps the game fresh and allows them to experience more than they could when they originally bought the game. That’s the approach we take, rather than annualizing the franchise, we are periodically releasing new courses, levels and features that keep people playing. We see a huge surge in gameplay hours on Mario Kart when we [release new content].

We take different approaches with different franchises. If you look at the Pokémon franchise, we have released multiple core games for 3DS.We like to give Pokémon fans something every year, but something like Mario Kart or Smash Bros. there may only be one version of that franchise in the whole console cycle. It all depends on the franchise, the developer and what new ideas they can bring to the franchise to move the gameplay forward and keep the franchise fresh. I think we always need to innovate and we need to always bring new ideas and new thoughts, but they have to be sufficient enough to justify the next release. Small, incremental changes may not be worth a whole new release."

[Link]