Anonymous asked: What do you think the odds are of having famous Nintendo characters (Mario, Donkey Kong etc) make appearances in non-Nintendo arenas, particularly in other companies games? Would you like to see more cross-over appearances between characters from different series?

Thanks for the question, Anon! Looking at a historical perspective, we can see that what appearances Nintendo’s characters have made in third-party games, they’re usually exclusive to Nintendo platforms. For example, Takamaru (he of the mysterious castle) appeared in Samurai Warriors 3, but only the Wii version. Link and Samus were also to appear in the Wii version of a Marvel super heroes game, but Nintendo got mad and pulled out when a build was demonstrated to them using PS2 hardware (stupid reaction if you ask me).

I’d always love to see crossover appearances, but I think Nintendo may be better off having a gentler hand with it than I would. While they have their hardware platform, it’s only sensible to keep their characters on that platform. And too many crossovers may dilute the whole concept. I love to drool over the ones that have been done, though.