For nearly 30 years now millions of people have looked to a Nintendo console for their fill of video game fun. Every year we see Nintendo put out a quality title if not titles for one of it's beloved platforms, as we willfully devour sequel after sequel of it's cherished franchises. In recent times though there has been a staunch change of opinion in the way people perceive Nintendo retreading the same ground over and over. Gamers look forward to the inevitable Zelda and Mario sequel not with the hope of 'more' but of something different. It's gotten to the stage now where people are crying out for the next great thing from Nintendo that doesn't involve their trophy mascots. December 2001 was the last time we saw an original IP from Nintendo and it took the form of the quirky but fun Pikmin. Since then we haven't seen a new mascot standard type franchise on a Nintendo platform.

Why is this?

Well I'll get the obvious out of the way first, milking the franchises is making Nintendo plenty of money as it is. More than enough copies of Mario, Zelda and Metroid Prime sell to warrant them turning up every two or three years. So from Nintendo's standpoint there isn't really any need for them to develop new mascots or IPs, well not at least that appeal to the hardcore gamer.

So why from a gamers standpoint do we not need to see new IP but just refreshes of current franchises? Well todays games industry is a very different landscape to what it was 10 even 5 years ago. We are spoilt in terms of the wealth of games available to us. They range all genres and cross all game types that we could possibly be after. The quality bar is also a lot higher now than it has been in previous years. What does this have to do with Nintendo producing new IP? We no longer need Nintendo to deliver quality titles at a ridiculously fast rate. We can get a quality game from near enough any 3rd party developer/publisher. If you look at the release calendar for the past two or three years you will notice that each month is filled with at least one high caliber game.

I'll take Mario Galaxy as an example for my next point. This is an amazing title which lives up to the standard set by other Mario titles. Essentially though, it's exactly the same as Mario Sunshine before it and Mario 64 before that. 10 years of separation and the fat little plumber hasn't changed in a remarkable way at all. Despite that I will still herald the game as one of the best games of the past 5 years. So why am I content to wade through Mario 64 again? It's pretty simple really, since Mario Sunshine I have been through 20+ games across different platforms, some bad games but the majority being on the scale of good to great. So when the time comes that I get to play a game that excels in every aspect possible, then the quality itself surpasses the fact that the game is sort of similar to it's previous incarnations. I have the same feeling for pretty much every Nintendo franchise, sure I see it once in a blue moon and I may have seen the sights before but I know that every time I get to experience it I always have the best of times.

I won't get ahead of myself, I wouldn't mind seeing a fresh, new game from Nintendo that meets their usual standard. Right now though in an industry full of triple A titles I don't need to rely on the big N to bring me my gaming goodness all of the time.

Lazlow out.