Activision axes the Guitar Hero franchise, and new Mario...

[adventure_of_link]

...is lazy. WTF? @_@

Yes, the fat lady is indeed singing her heart out, as the musical genre is dying. First, Viacom sold off Rock Band developer Harmonix. Just this last week, longtime Rock Band publisher MTV Games shut down. This is due in part to:

1. the double-dip economic downturn
2. oversaturation of the musical genre
and 3. dwindling interest in this genre

As a result, Activision is dumping the Guitar Hero franchise, and will cut its work force down by 7%.

http://blog.games.yahoo.com/blog/374-ac ... franchise/

Also, Mario should just stick to platform jumping. While he succeeds there, in other areas, he's not. With the new Mario Sports Pack, only 67% of reviewers are leaving anything good, compared to 97%+ for Super Mario Galaxy 2. Seriously, people just need to do what they do best, and if it's not bad enough, SMP was sourced to known RPG maker, Square-Enix.

http://blog.games.yahoo.com/blog/364-cr ... ubstantial

[sweener2001]

you know, last time mario was sourced to square, we got super mario rpg. or did you forget that?

[grinvader]

You also missed the fact that this is how nintendo's been (successfully) working these last 25 fucking years:
- make a game of any kind that doesn't need a specific protagonist
- put your very well-known and brand-promoting character as protagonist even if it makes no sense
- ????
- profit

They've been proving for a while now that putting a famous figure as protagonist of an otherwise bland game makes it just more interesting for customers. "hey, it's mario !... playing soccer. And he's got some wild moves. Coool !"
Or something. Note that SEGA didn't do this with Sonic until it was largely too late to catch up (there's like, a pinball game, and a puyo puyo clone). Sonic was pretty much locked in his fast-paced-platforming category, which didn't prove deep enough to bring enough people for decades. Everytime they try to pull him out of there in a game where he's the hero, it doesn't end well.

Back to nintendo, this is why every new platform they make will always have a mario game, a zelda game, a kirby game, and so on until they run out of mascots to use. Lots of mascots means a whole bunch of games to develop for every platform you create.

[adventure_of_link]

you know, last time mario was sourced to square, we got super mario rpg. or did you forget that?

No, and I do agree SMRPG kicks ass; it's just a bit of a shock that Square-Enix was now making sports games..

[badinsults]

you know, last time mario was sourced to square, we got super mario rpg. or did you forget that?

No, the last time Mario was sourced at Square, we got Mario Basketball.

[sweener2001]

i'm going to have to plead ignorance on that point. mostly because i don't care at all for mario [insert activity] games.

[snkcube]

This shouldn't be much of a surprise. The more "well-known" sports game Sega done with Nintendo was Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Note that SEGA didn't do this with Sonic until it was largely too late to catch up (there's like, a pinball game, and a puyo puyo clone).

Also a Mario Kart-ish.
But then, EVERYONE made a Mario Kart-ish.

[Rashidi]

is there any 'Tactic Mario' games?
you know, Tactic Ogre-ish, FFT-ish, Super Robot Wars-ish, Fire Emblem-ish, Shining Force-ish, Langrisser-ish, etc..., games with Mario's cast.
if there was, i want to know.

at least TYPE-MOON made that kind of game with casts from their visual novel series.

[funkyass]

The difference between Rock Band/GH and Mario?

the Mario [activity] games don't cost millions to make.

hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Modern Warfare2 costs more than all the mario games to make.

Activision is stuck in short-term returns mode. Its a hard rut for a company to get out of.

[grinvader]

is there any 'Tactic Mario' games?
you know, Tactic Ogre-ish, FFT-ish, Super Robot Wars-ish, Fire Emblem-ish, Shining Force-ish, Langrisser-ish, etc..., games with Mario's cast.
if there was, i want to know.

I don't know of any. There's no mario RTS either. Or mario plumbing tycoon.