I'm not sure if I'm the only one who notices this, but let's begin:
Nintendo has many recognizable mascots, some of them building off their reputation of another. However, Nintendo is also known as "kiddie." This has people believe Nintendo's mascots are all "kiddie." This is untrue.
Nintendo mascots range from humanoid to cuddly creatures to large behemoth-like creatures. We know many Nintendo games lack blood, sex, gore, and foul language (then again, most of the time they don't even talk).
So who are these mascots? They are (in alphabetical order):
Captain Falcon, Captain Oliver, Donkey Kong, Fox McCloud, Link, Mario, Mr. Game & Watch, Pikachu (and 300+ of his friends), Samus, Yoshi, and others.
Now keep in mind Nintendo is a company from Japan that has strong ideals about family, so their main mascot Mario is probably not going to be loading a magnum and blowing people's head off for not paying their plumbing bills any time soon. Donkey Kong, Mario, and Yoshi have stemmed from one another and that eliminates their adult-oriented contents anytime in the near future.
Other mascots have been pretty much neglected like Game and Watch.
And basically anything furry like Fox may not see adult-content either unless they're going ot be used to rip the flesh off their enemies with canines. Also, Pokémon are geared towards childrens and hardcore fans.
Also Captain Falcon is well... he's in a racing game from the future so we really don't need to see any blood, gore, and sex unless Nintendo end up teaming with Rockstar to make Grand Theft Auto: F-Zero.
So what does that leave us with?
Yes, Link and Samus. We've already seen the subtle changes. The environment from both games gets more dark with the newest games. They're both humanoid, stand at our height and well have a lot of potential for killing things. Link has a sword, Samus has a gun. Need I say more? Does this mean we'll soon see our favorite hero Link decapitating other humans? Perhaps. Does this mean we'll soon see our favorite blonde beauty in a robot uniform blasting the chest cavities of unsuspecting soldiers leaving very graphic wounds as they die? Probably not, but what we do know is that it's heading towards a darker more "mature" setting.
Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that Nintendo knows that there are mature gamers that (for the most part) grew with them from the NES days and outgrew them after the SNES. They're dead set on bringing EVERYONE back to their console and I think they're doing pretty well doing it. You won't see drastic changes or else they'll offend the fans they already have, and you probably won't see them making characters specifically for mature games because it's not their style. They want to reach out to gamers of all ages and just because some gamers (the same ones which started becoming gamers on the NES and some wannabe kid gamers who want to be "cool" so they avoid Nintendo) say Nintendo is "kiddie," it just means they're not looking hard enough (or too young to understand such concepts).
Nintendo has many recognizable mascots, some of them building off their reputation of another. However, Nintendo is also known as "kiddie." This has people believe Nintendo's mascots are all "kiddie." This is untrue.
Nintendo mascots range from humanoid to cuddly creatures to large behemoth-like creatures. We know many Nintendo games lack blood, sex, gore, and foul language (then again, most of the time they don't even talk).
So who are these mascots? They are (in alphabetical order):
Captain Falcon, Captain Oliver, Donkey Kong, Fox McCloud, Link, Mario, Mr. Game & Watch, Pikachu (and 300+ of his friends), Samus, Yoshi, and others.
Now keep in mind Nintendo is a company from Japan that has strong ideals about family, so their main mascot Mario is probably not going to be loading a magnum and blowing people's head off for not paying their plumbing bills any time soon. Donkey Kong, Mario, and Yoshi have stemmed from one another and that eliminates their adult-oriented contents anytime in the near future.
Other mascots have been pretty much neglected like Game and Watch.
And basically anything furry like Fox may not see adult-content either unless they're going ot be used to rip the flesh off their enemies with canines. Also, Pokémon are geared towards childrens and hardcore fans.
Also Captain Falcon is well... he's in a racing game from the future so we really don't need to see any blood, gore, and sex unless Nintendo end up teaming with Rockstar to make Grand Theft Auto: F-Zero.
So what does that leave us with?
Yes, Link and Samus. We've already seen the subtle changes. The environment from both games gets more dark with the newest games. They're both humanoid, stand at our height and well have a lot of potential for killing things. Link has a sword, Samus has a gun. Need I say more? Does this mean we'll soon see our favorite hero Link decapitating other humans? Perhaps. Does this mean we'll soon see our favorite blonde beauty in a robot uniform blasting the chest cavities of unsuspecting soldiers leaving very graphic wounds as they die? Probably not, but what we do know is that it's heading towards a darker more "mature" setting.
Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that Nintendo knows that there are mature gamers that (for the most part) grew with them from the NES days and outgrew them after the SNES. They're dead set on bringing EVERYONE back to their console and I think they're doing pretty well doing it. You won't see drastic changes or else they'll offend the fans they already have, and you probably won't see them making characters specifically for mature games because it's not their style. They want to reach out to gamers of all ages and just because some gamers (the same ones which started becoming gamers on the NES and some wannabe kid gamers who want to be "cool" so they avoid Nintendo) say Nintendo is "kiddie," it just means they're not looking hard enough (or too young to understand such concepts).
