Nintendo doesn’t feel that they’re milking the Mario Bros franchise

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Franchises come and go, but the successful ones hang around for many a year, releasing new titles on an annual basis. Or every six months. Or every week, because that’s what it feels like some days whenever another Super Mario game pops up. The Italian plumber has been a staple of Nintendo for quite a few years now, carrying the heavy burden of mascot for an entire generation of gamers, with new games popping up constantly. And according to Nintendo, they aren’t worried about over-saturating the market with Mario at all.

Talking to GI International, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said that Nintendo holds the Mario “IP very dearly.”

Our developers, starting with Mr. Miyamoto and going through the entire EAD development organization, they understand the power of our franchises, and they understand that the only reason these franchises have the power that they do is that they have to make sure that each subsequent edition is unique, different and offers something new.

They know that if they don’t do that, we’ll kill the golden goose that lays the golden egg. So it’s something they are highly cognizant of, and even the executives on the business side, we hold that IP very dearly to make sure that every edition in the series is foundationally sound.

Fils-Aime’s also ring a few bells, as Nintendo President Satoru Iwata still said during Gamescom that: “We only create a New Super Mario Bros. title one per platform”.

I think we’ll probably go ahead and continue at that pace. That being said, that’s probably Miyamoto’s choice, so I can’t give you a 100% guarantee that that’s the pace we’ll continue at.

Still, that’s quite a bit of Super Mario. We’ve seen the portly plumber bounce around in numerous games on the 3DS handheld, and make no mistake, there will be other avenues of gameplay for Nintendo to explore with him when the Wii U rolls around, which means that Princess Peach can expect a lot more kidnappings in the future.

New Super Mario Bros. U is the first such title from  Nintendo for their upcoming flagship console, the Wii U, and will be a launch title in November when it arrives locally on November 30.