Nintendo, don’t let your franchises fade into obscurity

Nintendo, love ’em or hate ’em, has one of the most powerful franchise line ups known to gaming.

Mario, Zelda, Pokémon, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, Metroid, Pikmin, F-Zero, Fire Emblem, it’s quite a big list, and it doesn’t end there.

However, it’s a list that’s going to become much smaller if Nintendo keeps letting some of their titles stagnate.

Franchise Decay

The last time we saw an F-Zero game was in 2004, over 10 years ago. Metroid: Other M was released in 2010, and it wasn’t received well. To a lot of people, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was the last good Metroid game and it was released in 2007. Earthbound’s third installment, and allegedly final game, is only available in Japan.

The problem is that by not giving these franchises any attention, people will lose interest in them, eventually to the point where it wouldn’t be worth it to make a new entry in the series.

Metroid isn’t there yet but I’ve accepted the fact Captain Falcon will only ever be a Super Smash Brothers character from now on.

It’s not just Nintendo

Half-Life 3. There I said it. If Valve announced Half-Life 3 tomorrow, it would probably be huge news and would see coverage all over the web, despite the fact that Valve hasn’t done anything with it in a very long time.

But Half-Life 3 is a very different beast. If Nintendo didn’t release a new Zelda game in a decade, it might be similar to Half-Life 3‘s situation, but for the smaller franchises this would never work.

I’m not saying these games are dying but…

It’s a good thing when your franchise is in the public eye. It’s a bad thing when they’re not.

It’s not like people don’t want these games either.

Capcom has been sitting on Mega Man for such a long time that fans had to go through a Kickstarter for Mighty No.9 just to get a game that plays like Mega Man.

Mega Man Legends 3, cancelled before it even got a chance.

Classic Castlevania’s stopped getting attention (outside Lords of Shadow) and now the game that fans wanted has a Kickstarter.

We shouldn’t have to go through Kickstarter to get the games we want, and companies need to find ways to bring their prestigious franchises back into the forefront before they fade into obscurity.