Mario remains one of gaming's top icons, but for some strange reason, the Italian plumber hasn't accompanied one of Nintendo's hardware launches in quite some time. We lamented this fact and the chance that Project Cafe's launch may also miss out on Mario in a letter to Nintendo. More recently, IndustryGamers chatted with several analysts about this predicament.
Truth be told, as annoying as it might be for some Nintendo faithful, Nintendo can succeed without Mario at launch, especially if they have serious third-party backing. One analyst suggested that Nintendo may open the piggybank to secure some major exclusives.
"Miyamoto is a perfectionist and does not want to make a bad or mediocre Mario title. It is entirely possible that Project Cafe will launch without a Mario title. They can afford to do it as long as there are some titles to attract early adopters. Management has indicated that 3rd party releases will be more of a focus going forward. I would expect that we will hear about some Nintendo exclusives from the likes of Rockstar, Epic, or Valve going forward. This would draw in the hardcore gamer demographic that was MIA during the Wii console cycle. Nintendo has the cash hoard to secure such deals," commented Asif Khan of Panoptic Management Consultants, who writes exclusively for IndustryGamers in the "Game Trader" column (he recently suggested buying Nintendo stock).
Billy Pidgeon of M2 Research agrees, noting that Mario is not the only way for Nintendo to succeed. "Mario is great IP, but there are no single game system sellers anymore -- it will take a pipeline of great games for any system to gain significant share. Project Café may well launch without Mario. We won't know more until next week, but a Mario launch title on its own won't be sufficient to make or break a new system," he told us.
Jesse Divnich of EEDAR points out that Nintendo did launch its original DS with Mario, but then again it was just Mario 64 ported to DS, not an original. Nevertheless, Divnich believes holding out and waiting for the installed base to grow first might actually be a wiser move. "I believe Nintendo's strategy to release a Mario based title well after launch has to do with marketing sizing. With Mario being a key pillar for Nintendo, it may be best to launch a Mario title when enough of an install base exists. Typically, the first 12-month sales of any console is directly tied to the appeal of the key differentiating technology features and not necessarily the software. Software, however, drives the console sales long-term, hence why Nintendo has typically chosen to launch some of their key branded titles well after launch," he explained.
Even so, with Project Cafe likely being a pretty powerful console, fans will be eager to see Mario take advantage of the horsepower in a new title, and Parks Associates analyst Pietro Macchiarella thinks Nintendo shouldn't make its base wait too long. "In the case of the 3DS I think that they wanted to appeal to a more general customer base than the traditional Mario fan base by betting on more hardcore titles. Apparently that only partially worked. As for Project Café... If I were Nintendo I would not time Mario's release too far off from the hardware launch. If they need to build momentum on the new platform, they might need their best IP," he remarked to us.
We'll probably know much more soon, as Nintendo is set to unveil its Wii successor at E3 in less than two weeks.
