Nintendo: Fans prefer the old franchises

Nintendo continues to create games based on old franchises because they simply appeal to more people, according to director of marketing Bill Trinen.

Earlier this week Nintendo revealed several new games for the Wii U and 3DS, but they mostly involved classic characters like Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong and Zelda.

Trinen said the idea was to generate new, unique gameplay elements and pair them with loveable characters for the best results.

"There's a couple of driving reasons why you keep seeing a lot of the same franchises come back," Trinen told GameSpot.

"One is just the way we develop games. What we don't do is start off and say we're going to develop a new game in X series or what are we going to do with it? It's really about what is a fun and interesting new gameplay element or gameplay mechanic? How do we develop that? And then what kind of a character or what series is that really best suited to?

"And so, in a lot of the cases, if you've got an idea that's really fun and interesting, pairing that with, for example, Mario, then that takes a fun and interesting gameplay mechanic and puts it with a character that makes it instantly appealing to a very wide range of people."

Trinen also believes fans get more excited when they hear about a new game for an old franchise.

"Of course the other approach is, as you frequently see with Nintendo Directs and announcements like this, when we do announce something like a new Yoshi's Island, there's a tremendous fan reaction to that because they want it."