who to you is your nintendo mascot?

[Mirr0rR3flection]

Link so "Hardcore" gamers will stop seeing Nintendo as kiddy.

One look at him ---> always perceives kiddy to them. But if I could really have my way, I'd want it to be DK. ^_^

[Devil_Rising]

I honestly don't think anyone is going to choose someone other than Mario.

He's the most popular, most well-known character in Nintendo's and most of gaming's history. He is the video gaming Mickey Mouse. You can't even hope to change it at this point.

A better question would've been something like "If you were head of Nintendo back in the 80s, which character from all of Nintendo's history would you have chosen to be the mascot for the next 30+ years" or something. Like which series would you have wanted Nintendo spamming titles with and making the most recognizable character instead of Mario.

I'd say Luigi, haha. But probably The Legend of Zelda.

But even in that scenario, I don't think anything would have "made" Nintendo what they are quite like Super Mario Bros. though. As amazing as some of their other franchises, like Zelda, Metroid, etc. were/are......Mario just had "it". It had that appeal to all kinds of people, all kinds of gamers. Super Mario Bros., while hardly being "easy", managed to be universal.

[mock turtle]

Because Kooloo Limpah.

[Tingle]

Because Kooloo Limpah.

I endorse this.

[CM30]

If I had to choose, I'd keep Nintendo's mascot as Mario. He is the most well known Nintendo character of all time after all, as well as probably the most well known video game character in history, and while I do like characters such as Link, Pikachu, Kirby, etc, most of them are hardly anywhere near as iconic as Mario is.

[pokemaster515]

R.O.B. since without him stores would have never wanted to sell the NES and Mario would be NOTHING!

[dkanddiddy]

Donkey Kong is my favorite Nintendo character, but Mario is much more popular. So, I guess to me Donkey Kong, but in general it's Mario.

[MoldyClay]

But even in that scenario, I don't think anything would have "made" Nintendo what they are quite like Super Mario Bros. though. As amazing as some of their other franchises, like Zelda, Metroid, etc. were/are......Mario just had "it". It had that appeal to all kinds of people, all kinds of gamers. Super Mario Bros., while hardly being "easy", managed to be universal.

But that all plays into how they went about things. Super Mario Bros. only exists because of Mario Bros. which exists because of Donkey Kong. And none of those 3 games share anything in common gameplay-wise other than jumping.

SMB could have been that shooting game Miyamoto intended it to be and that would not necessarily have "made" Nintendo, depending on how it played out. And they could have just as easily made more Donkey Kong games, but not used Jumpman. Like DK3, but without the absurdity of pushing him up with bug spray (though I like Donkey Kong 3).

Mario only made Nintendo because they pushed him because he was the hero of Donkey Kong, which was their first successful game worldwide, but they didn't have to use that hero again. And for all intents and purposes, it doesn't even make sense that they did (since Jumpman was a carpenter, not a plumber as seen in Mario Bros.).

If someone at Nintendo were to decide not to go forth with a platformer for whatever reason, or a different platformer (like Kirby, or say they invented Donkey Kong Country ahead of time, on NES), then things would've been very different. it didn't HAVE to be Mario specifically.

Because Kooloo Limpah.

I support this. All of my money for a 3DS Tingle game and a Tingle 3DS (green with a silhouette of him on it or something).

R.O.B. since without him stores would have never wanted to sell the NES and Mario would be NOTHING!

Not necessarily. Nintendo could have easily kept going in the Arcades. I mean, Japan got an arcade port of Super Mario Bros., so no R.O.B. would've just delayed the inevitable.

[Devil_Rising]

I still think the Super Mario Bros. game, specifically, is what helped the NES, and thus Nintendo themselves, be such a massive success. Regardless of how SMB came about, it was fated to turn out like it did, and what I was saying, is it's THAT formula specifically, that made them a runaway success. I would argue that games like Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, Punchout, etc., owe a good deal of their success to SMB making the NES so popular in the first place. Most people wanted to buy an NES because Mario became a phenominon, which has carried on to this day.

"pokemaster515" was right in saying that without R.O.B., the NES wouldn't have sold in AMERICAN stores, because stores didn't want to sell video games after the market crash of 1983. Nintendo snuck the NES into stores with ROB, where retailers thought they were selling a "family entertainment center" or toy, and that was that. But it was still the awesomeness of SMB itself that actually caused the system to sell millions.

[MoldyClay]

I still think the Super Mario Bros. game, specifically, is what helped the NES, and thus Nintendo themselves, be such a massive success. Regardless of how SMB came about, it was fated to turn out like it did, and what I was saying, is it's THAT formula specifically, that made them a runaway success. I would argue that games like Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, Punchout, etc., owe a good deal of their success to SMB making the NES so popular in the first place. Most people wanted to buy an NES because Mario became a phenominon, which has carried on to this day.

"pokemaster515" was right in saying that without R.O.B., the NES wouldn't have sold in AMERICAN stores, because stores didn't want to sell video games after the market crash of 1983. Nintendo snuck the NES into stores with ROB, where retailers thought they were selling a "family entertainment center" or toy, and that was that. But it was still the awesomeness of SMB itself that actually caused the system to sell millions.

I'm not saying SMB wouldn't have been a success. I am saying if Nintendo decided to not make that. The original success was for the DK game, so they could have easily not gone on with Mario. Or a different platformer series could have wound up being their first. I'm suggesting if they DIDN'T make the SMB game/formula they did.

And I know what ROB did. But the topic was that without ROB, Mario would be nothing, but that's not necessarily true. I was trying to say that MARIO could still have been successful. Donkey Kong was popular in America, and Mario Bros., so if Super Mario Bros. was made in Arcades they would've brought it to America and it would've exploded. They could have probably sold that alone and moved from that to NES.

R.O.B. just made things happen faster, but they still would've found a way eventually.

Obviously Nintendo/Mario owe a lot to him for bringing NES out and stuff, but I think he just made it happen sooner. Which is good.

[Thermithral]

If Mario ever disappeared(That would be a sad thing to see), Pit would make the perfect replacement, as he basically sums up Nintendo: He is extremely happy, loves games( see KI:U and all its references) and destroys all his competition with a smile.

[jackattack]

Mario or R.O.B.