Well they are. If you count non-first-party titles from independent studios, yeah, the competition is making a lot of new games and characters all the time. If you just want to limit it to new first-party IPs, just compare the number of new IPs that Sony has put onto the market over the last generation vs. Nintendo.

I agree there's nothing wrong with using a franchise, but there's definitely something wrong with not putting out a decent amount of new IP (or at least significantly different versions of a franchise, e.g. comparing Paper Mario with Super Mario 64). Can you think of any new first-party Wii IP besides the various Mii-based games like Wii Sports, Endless Ocean, and Xenoblade?

What, so Nintendo is not only responsible for launching the platform, but needs to come up with an entirely new franchise each cycle as well?

They release the platform, and then they use their first party titles to bring the initial group of people so third party developers have an audience to sell to. As long as the first party titles are fun and interesting, I don't see any problem with that.

P.S. Are you really equating Paper Mario and Super Mario 64? As someone who played Super Paper Mario for the first time a few months back, beyond superficialities, they aren't much alike at all.

I'm talking about the original Paper Mario and Super Mario 64, both for the N64. It was my intention to compare them, not equate them, precisely because they aren't much alike at all and demonstrate that even within a franchise you can be quite unique, which is more or less as good as a new IP and Nintendo has shown itself repeatedly capable of doing that. What's not good are games like the last several Mario games since Super Mario Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros. DS, which have all, again more or less, been the same. (Note Super Paper Mario (fairly different from the original itself, and Thousand Year Door as well) was released before Super Mario Galaxy.)

Nintendo is responsible, yes, so long as they're a games company and not a hardware company. Sony does it, Microsoft even does it to a lesser degree. There was not a single new IP that Miyamoto worked on for the Wii apart from Wii Sports. Wii owners did get 1.5 new Zelda games though, and as a Wii owner of course that pleases me. Again, nothing wrong with using a franchise.

It's also in their self-interest to make new IPs, if for nothing else than to show what their console can do which is just one extra selling point for getting third-parties on board. I would have thought they learned their lesson with the Wii from its final couple years, but how's the Wii U doing? A lot of third-party developers (notably in the news recently, EA) aren't getting invested in that at all, especially with the PS4 and Xbox One on the way, and especially with the rise of mobile gaming. And there is still the audience that's always there, the glorious PC Gaming Master Race! (My own bias. Though the consoles have made it this way for me by no longer catering to the gamer.)

At some point, I don't think it's in their best interest to create new IPs. They have a well known and strong stable of titles they can choose, and adding to it may delay new releases for an IP even further than they are.

As for the SMB Wii-U, it is a bit of the same old, but it's the only title I have for the Wii-U I was gifted for Christmas. I'm not sure what the other titles have to offer. (It used to be when I was younger I could go rent games from the local video store or chain, but Netflix has killed them all off. What do people do now, just use something like gamefly?)

Other than that, I agree completely. The fact that the Xbox One launched with four EA sports titles - and that's it - made it pretty clear who their target audience is, and it's not me (not that I have the time to play games much anymore anyway, which is probably the point).

HN doesn't use markdown, it just has a very primitive system where italics can be created with asterisks.