Board 8 > Current state of Nintendo franchises

(+) Yeah! (+)

Also Mario Kart absolutely sells systems, it's silly to argue otherwise.

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StealThisSheen posted...

TomNook posted...

I've never even heard of Fossil Fighters in my life.

But if you've never heard of Fossil Fighters, how could you possibly

FIND the fossils,
COLLECT the bones,
BATTLE with dinosaurs!

Was this a contingency plan in case Game Freak found some loophole to take Pokmon away?
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i miss advance wars

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Kinglicious posted...

I'd bump Metroid down one because the last few entries weren't any good. Prime series is one thing but the last 2D one with praise was on the GBA. Hunters? That soccer one? They didn't do shit.

Samus Returns?

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completely forgot about Samus Returns.
it didn't sell.

would be impressive if it even got half a million, so yeah, it'd be significantly below the likes of DK, Yoshi, and Mario spinoffs and have less push. swapping it and Mario sports series would be accurate.

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The past decade may have been underwhelming, but the decade prior was full of life. Metroid, F-Zero, Star Fox, Pikmin, Mother, and many other IPs received games and sold millions (all while Fire Emblem wasn't even an afterthought). With that in mind, it makes little sense why things turned out the way they did. Now you're expected to believe the next decade won't be an improvement. Will people still be playing the same Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon games in 10 or 20 years, and are most of them not buying any other games whatsoever?

What about the Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside franchise?

F-Zero is G rank. The three main characters of the series (Captain Falcon, Samurai Goroh, and the Blue Falcon) might as well be their own separate entities at this point. Nintendo has released 10 Mario Kart games since F-Zero GX came out, and put in the minimum amount of effort on a Nintendoland tech demo.

Excite is C or D rank. There was an Excitebike tech demo in Labo 01 (with an actual track editor) and almost the entirety of Labo 03 can probably be considered an Excite game.

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Heropon_Riki posted...

There was a Brain Age game a few months ago. Nobody really cares about the franchise anymore, it wasn't released in all regions and I don't think it did well, but it still happened so I think that puts it more in "life support" category than actually dead.

A few missing ones on the list:

-Art Academy, which went from almost yearly releases to no games since 2016. There's enough chance of revival that I'd rank it as dormant.

-Boxboy! which is alive but not exactly a major franchise.

-Excite as in Excitebike and Excite Truck, which is looking pretty dead but gets some legacy representation through Mario Kart and Smash Bros references.

-Fluidity is dead and barely remembered.

-Nintendogs did well enough and is referenced frequently enough in other products that I think it's dormant and likely to return, possibly in mobile game form as it seems well-suited for the medium.

-Labo is alive, having received the VR kit only about a year ago. I wouldn't be surprised to see another Labo set or two on the Switch. Given the concept is built around the hardware though, I don't think it will survive past the Switch's life cycle.

-Puzzle League isn't looking too healthy at the moment, but will likely return in some form eventually. I'd call it dormant.

-Pokemon spin-offs (Detective Pikachu, Pokken Tournament, Mystery Dungeon etc.) aren't going anywhere soon. They're very much alive.

-Pushmo seems likely to remain in the 3DS era, but I wouldn't be completely shocked if it returned. Not sure whether to call it dormant or functionally dead.

-R.O.B. is almost definitely dead, but continues to make cameos and be playable in Smash Bros.

-Rhythm Heaven got a game as recently as 2015 and is basically in the same lifeboat as Warioware in the dormant category.

-Sin and Punishment is dead and mostly forgotten. Treasure doesn't seem to be around anymore and the demand is pretty low, meaning future S&P games are very unlikely.

-Steel Diver had a sequel apparently, which is news to me but makes it a franchise technically. The franchise has maybe 10 fans in the entire world and will likely stay dead.

-Wave Race doesn't have nearly as much fan demand as F-Zero and lacks any memorable characters or locations to really capitalize on. It's dead.

These are some good omissions. Some others that I have since remembered existed:
1080 Snowboarding (dead and forgotten)
Dillon's Rolling Western (obscure, but relatively alive)
Another Code (dead and forgotten)

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On a slight side note, I feel like Metroid's recent struggles have been because Nintendo didn't really know how to continue the series on aging hardware, thus why Other M and Federation Force were so gimmicky. Now that we have the Switch, the series can probably evolve more logically now.

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In what direction do we think some of the dormant franchises will go? I think Kid Icarus can be considered dead if it doesn't get anything in the next 2 years or so. It's the one franchise I can think of that was actually hurt by being in Smash. I think, after the success of Kid Icarus Uprising, Nintendo used Smash 4 to try and push Kid Icarus as the next big thing, which is why it got 2 new characters, a bunch of items and took over the Snake Codec mechanic. However, everyone hated it and accused Sakurai of being biased towards his own game (Dark Pit was easily the most hated Smash character ever at the time, and after Smash Ultimate he remains near the top of that list, if not still at number 1). This scared Nintendo away from doing anything else with the franchise and they pushed Fire Emblem as the next big thing instead, this time successfully.

It's a shame really, as Kid Icarus could stand out among Nintendo's IPs if they did more with it. Uprising didn't have the traditionally Nintendo-ey feel, if you know what I mean. It feels to me like what Ratchet and Clank would be like if that was a Nintendo franchise, and that's fine by me.

hey Stunt Race FX finally came back to remembered status through Switch Online + Smash Ultimate

....

I'll take whatever wins that game can get

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GavsEvans123 posted...

In what direction do we think some of the dormant franchises will go? I think Kid Icarus can be considered dead if it doesn't get anything in the next 2 years or so. It's the one franchise I can think of that was actually hurt by being in Smash. I think, after the success of Kid Icarus Uprising, Nintendo used Smash 4 to try and push Kid Icarus as the next big thing, which is why it got 2 new characters, a bunch of items and took over the Snake Codec mechanic. However, everyone hated it and accused Sakurai of being biased towards his own game (Dark Pit was easily the most hated Smash character ever at the time, and after Smash Ultimate he remains near the top of that list, if not still at number 1). This scared Nintendo away from doing anything else with the franchise and they pushed Fire Emblem as the next big thing instead, this time successfully.

It's a shame really, as Kid Icarus could stand out among Nintendo's IPs if they did more with it. Uprising didn't have the traditionally Nintendo-ey feel, if you know what I mean. It feels to me like what Ratchet and Clank would be like if that was a Nintendo franchise, and that's fine by me.

Corrin definitely topped Dark Pit. A thousand times over. The SSB4 board on this site was never remotely readable again after he was announced.

I agree, I think Kid Icarus can be considered dead (again) if we hear nothing within the next two years or so. Same with Punch-Out and Pilotwings. Chibi-Robo had ZipLash in 2015 so I'll give that a few extra years. It may even actually be up a tier because of that game.

Star Fox moves down to dormant if we hear nothing within the next couple years as well.

The difference between dormant and dead to me is the admittedly arbitrary odds that it will be revived anytime soon (say, within this console generation). So yeah by that token I agree with everyone here that F-Zero ought to be declared dead.

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