Mario has become a global icon to the likes of Mickey Mouse. This is no lucky shot though because to this day Mario is always a top contender for a game of the year award on any dedicated video game website. Over the years, unlike his competitors (Sonic, Toe Jam & Earl, and Boogerman) he was able to evolve through the years. In many ways Mario is Nintendo spanning across hundreds of games, dozens of genres, and selling over a billion of copies worldwide. Interestingly enough the top ten rated video games include Mario three times, not including the originals when released.
That is not Nintendo's only celebrating mascot, much like Disney, Nintendo thrives on their variety of characters. They have Link a sword wielding hero from "The Legend of Zelda" series, Star Fox a brave space pilot from the "Star Fox" series, Samus an alien fighter from the Metroid Prime series, Donkey Kong a giant ape from the Donkey Kong series, and many more. It is insane how many characters that Nintendo does own and to this day they are still creating more. All of these characters have been in multiple games and multiple mash-ups that show them competing with one another. These mash-up happened years before the Avengers hit movie theaters, showing that Nintendo is ahead of their game in more ways than one. They have been releasing new consoles at around a 5 year span going from the Nintendo Entertainment System, to the Super Nintendo, to Nintendo 64, to Gamecube, to Wii, now finally to the Wii U. Each experience has been different and fresh letting the players play the games in a brand new way.
The games were fantastic and the consoles were improvements over one another. It is fun to describe the consoles and talk about the games, but the only way to actually understand all of this is to play a Nintendo console. Years after the release of the first Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo is still hitting homeruns to this day. They are fun to play, families will get together around a television set just to play some of their favorite mascots. This is something that cannot be said about the competitors. If Nintendo keeps this innovations going they will be creating games for the next century and onward when we are finally introduced to fully interactive 3D worlds. Do not be surprised if Nintendo is behind this innovative technology.