Would Sonic and Mario be anywhere NEAR as popular as they are right now if....

[tokoolforranch]

I'll start off by saying that I am not a mega sonic fan. Secondly, I don't see Mario as a mascot, but as a figurehead. Now to place my humbled opinion, I don't think that neither one of them would have been as big as they are now if they would have been released more recently. But to compare them to games like Portal, Bioshock, Halo, Half Life, Metal Gear Solid, Gears of War, Mass Effect just isn't fair. Bioshock, Halo, Half Life, Metal Gear Solid, Gears of War and Mass Effect are not even closely related to games like Mario, AND the target demographics for those games are different. I played my first Mario game when I was 5 and (im 17 at the moment) I was not even interested in mutilating aliens with my assault rifle or running around in a cardboard box sedating enemy infantry. But I guess my answer in short, is no.

 

[randommaster]

Mario has been in a lot of games that were fun. They may have not been very story-driven, but they were easy to play, polished, and challenging enough to keep you interested. Sonic's success is largely due to the 2d game, (entirely due?) but a lot of people have already commented on that.

Did th OP ever even play a Mario game? You really can't say that Mario would totally fail today when compared to a bunch of FPS's because the genres are totally different. Chess is pretty old, but I don't see people calling it out for whoring itself onto every single device with a graphics card these days. The same goes for Tetris. Mario only gets the recognition because the games were good, as well as popular. If SMB3 or SMG were released as a standalone, they would still be considered good games.

I don't hear people complaining about Aliens, Doom or Wolfenstien for spawning a bunch of generic spinoffs .

 

[tokoolforranch]

Mario was not a gimmick bro. Maybe the game was genuinely good and had a fan base that decided to follow him through the years.

 

[tokoolforranch]

Thank you. You stole the words right out of my fingers.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

MArio and Sonic are the equivalent of the British pop singers of the 80s, who, while great in their day, are now stuck doing constant cruise liner tours and spots in coastal holiday camps doing 'remember the 80s' specials.

' Oi, Spandau Ballet, stop trying to play new stuff, play 'Gold' that's all we want from you, the classics, stop with the new ideas!'

That pretty much sums up Mario, Sonic, and gamers.

 

[JediMB]

Tbh, what other famous titles has Sega done? NONE. They would not exist any more. And without Mario, maybe Nintendo would put a bit more effort into the Pokemon games, maybe, I dunno... creating a good generation for once?

After Burner
Daytona USA
Shenmue
Out Run
Space Harrier
Virtua Cop
Virtua Fighter

Depends on your definition of "famous", though. They've all been rather high-profile games at times.

 

[hannahdonno]

Tbh, what other famous titles has Sega done? NONE. They would not exist any more. And without Mario, maybe Nintendo would put a bit more effort into the Pokemon games, maybe, I dunno... creating a good generation for once?

After Burner
Daytona USA
Shenmue
Out Run
Space Harrier
Virtua Cop
Virtua Fighter

Depends on your definition of "famous", though. They've all been rather high-profile games at times.

Yes, I see what you mean, but these titles are hardly ones that would keep a company afloat, are they? Because I obv know loads of people who rant on about how amazing Out Run and After Burner are |:

 

[xXzykoXx]

There's a lot of love for Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog these days. People just adore these mascots, they claim they are the best characters ever and have the best games. It's amazing how much people will tolerate from these two as well, Mario has become a real media sellout and Sonic has... well made a consistent list of terrible games. Yet people still buy into it unquestioning. Both Mario and Sonic got their start in the early years of gaming with the NES and Sega Genesis, and it strikes me that that's a possible reason as to their success. People remember how good they were back in the past and how they entertained them as kids (thank you Yahtzee) and as such they've become very popular so much so that they get a very undeserved free ride and get to make bad games and do stupid things and no one will question them.

However I'm playing the magical 'what if' game and suggesting that if back in the eighties Mario and Sonic had never been released, instead the very first Mario brothers was released on the Nintendo Wii and the very first Sonic game was too. Both of these games would have to offer little more than jumping from thing to thing and running fast. Next to games like Portal, Bioshock, Halo, Half Life, Metal Gear Solid, Gears of War, Mass Effect and various others I don't think these games would even be noticed. They wouldn't be popular.

Seriously imagine it, would Sonic and Mario even MATTER if they got their debut in this console generation?

So you're saying, as far as I can discern "what if two 80's games were released, as they were, in this console generation." Of course they would be bad compared to newer games, THEY ARE FROM THE EIGHTIES. The games would have better, well, everything than they did then. They may still be overlooked, but they would be completely different games.

 

[xXzykoXx]

Tbh, what other famous titles has Sega done? NONE. They would not exist any more. And without Mario, maybe Nintendo would put a bit more effort into the Pokemon games, maybe, I dunno... creating a good generation for once?

After Burner
Daytona USA
Shenmue
Out Run
Space Harrier
Virtua Cop
Virtua Fighter

Depends on your definition of "famous", though. They've all been rather high-profile games at times.

Yes, I see what you mean, but these titles are hardly ones that would keep a company afloat, are they? Because I obv know loads of people who rant on about how amazing Out Run and After Burner are |:

All of the games that JediMB stated are quite famous, and the monetary income from those sources combined, if all effort had not been put into Sonic, could well keep Sega prospering, also, OutRun and Afterburner are amazing games.

 

[hannahdonno]

Tbh, what other famous titles has Sega done? NONE. They would not exist any more. And without Mario, maybe Nintendo would put a bit more effort into the Pokemon games, maybe, I dunno... creating a good generation for once?

After Burner
Daytona USA
Shenmue
Out Run
Space Harrier
Virtua Cop
Virtua Fighter

Depends on your definition of "famous", though. They've all been rather high-profile games at times.

Yes, I see what you mean, but these titles are hardly ones that would keep a company afloat, are they? Because I obv know loads of people who rant on about how amazing Out Run and After Burner are |:

All of the games that JediMB stated are quite famous, and the monetary income from those sources combined, if all effort had not been put into Sonic, could well keep Sega prospering, also, OutRun and Afterburner are amazing games.

Well then I would would just go and arson their buildings, I would be doing everyone a favour. Sega would not have prospered like they have done without the help of that annoying blue hedgehog whizzing around.

And is it just me, or does Sonic not resemble a hedgehog in the slightest?

 

[Twilight_guy]

No. They are mascots that's all they have. If they were debuted now they would not be mascots so they wouldn't be as popular.

 

[quack35]

Maybe.

Mario Galaxy was hella good, so people might think that mustachioed upstart plumber was a pretty good character.

Sonic Unleashed was ok, and people would praise Sega for coming up with a character that's not a grumbly space marine.

Then again, without Sonic and Mario, the video game scene now would be vastly different...

 

[JediMB]

Tbh, what other famous titles has Sega done? NONE. They would not exist any more. And without Mario, maybe Nintendo would put a bit more effort into the Pokemon games, maybe, I dunno... creating a good generation for once?

After Burner
Daytona USA
Shenmue
Out Run
Space Harrier
Virtua Cop
Virtua Fighter

Depends on your definition of "famous", though. They've all been rather high-profile games at times.

Yes, I see what you mean, but these titles are hardly ones that would keep a company afloat, are they? Because I obv know loads of people who rant on about how amazing Out Run and After Burner are |:

I can't believe I forgot to mention House of the Dead and Virtua Tennis, which are at least both still getting sequels.

 

[MrBrightside919]

Sonic wouldn't matter as much as Mario...

Without Mario, there probably wouldn't be any games industry because of how Nintendo helped bring the industry out of the crash in the 80's with games like Super Mario Bros.

 

[hannahdonno]

Tbh, what other famous titles has Sega done? NONE. They would not exist any more. And without Mario, maybe Nintendo would put a bit more effort into the Pokemon games, maybe, I dunno... creating a good generation for once?

After Burner
Daytona USA
Shenmue
Out Run
Space Harrier
Virtua Cop
Virtua Fighter

Depends on your definition of "famous", though. They've all been rather high-profile games at times.

Yes, I see what you mean, but these titles are hardly ones that would keep a company afloat, are they? Because I obv know loads of people who rant on about how amazing Out Run and After Burner are |:

I can't believe I forgot to mention House of the Dead and Virtua Tennis, which are at least both still getting sequels.

These games are nothing more than mediocre. The best House of the Dead is the arcade version, and that is never going to rake in much cash.

 

[oliveira8]

Without Sonic and Mario there would be no Bioshock.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

Tbh, thinking about it, your making it seem very tempting to go and break one of my pipes at home, just to get Mario to come round so I can make him pop in the pipe and immediately block it, forcing him to slowly suffocate to death and allow Nintendo to finally realise he is DEAD and FORGOTTEN and start paying more attention to their other games. They have good ideas, so they need to stop regurgtating old ones just for the sake of a few extra pennies.

Dude, if I could play a new F-Zero game, I'd sack Mario in a minute!

 

[Nazulu]

I think Mario and Sonic would grab alot of peoples attention because they would be the only characters that are not space marines, soldiers, knights or something else done over a million times.

In fact, it would be strange to release them these days because they couldn't just make a plumber named Mario and make him a galaxy traveler! Same with Sonic becoming a Knight or Werewolf (Hogwolf) out of the blue, get it? They had to have a crap load of games to come this far and run out of ideas. This is basically alternating reality till it becomes a mindfuck but if it were just those 2 games released recently then they wouldn't have had much of an impact on the gaming industry.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

I'll start off by saying ... I don't see Mario as a mascot, but as a figurehead.

Um, ok...
Just for reference, here's what comes up on google search:

NINTENDO FIGUREHEAD:

[http://img58.imageshack.us/my.php?image=miyamotoshigeru.jpg]
Wiki: "Someone who holds high position but executes little power"

NINTENDO MASCOT:

[http://img58.imageshack.us/my.php?image=350pxmarionintendoimage.png]
Wiki: "defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck"

Incidentally, man A created character B which made company C rich as FUCK - how lucky!

Also, I played Mario when I was 2 or 3, when he was just starting. Then I played Doom when I was 9 and watched them try to port it to every console under the sun to try and cash in. Never took off because the PC version offered shareware AND a more complete feature set. Doom set the current PC-based generation of gaming in motion just like Mario saved the industry after the crash in '83 and set the console wars in motion. It's all part of the same industry.