• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Pokemon is the worlds biggest Media Franchise; Mario is 5th biggest

Ninjadom

Ninjadom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,195
London, UK
Thanks to winstein for this.

This is the list of the biggest media franchises in the world. Something that started as a book, film, video game, comic, or television series.

It covers all aspects of revenue including video game sales, merchandise, home entertainment etc.

1. Pokemon (year of inception 1996), grossed $59.1 billion
2. Hello Kitty (1974) $50.3 billion
3. Star Wars (1977) $43.7 billion
4. Mickey Mouse & friends (1928) $35.7 billion
5. Mario (1981) $27.1 billion

Source and full list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media_franchises
 

higgsboson1997

Banned
Nov 13, 2017
844
I found it baffling that people were saying that more people know Mario than Pikachu. Mario has a smaller presence in India and large parts of south east Asia than he does in the US.

Pikachu & Pokemon, on the other hand, are huge in almost every country. Having a TV cartoon and the cards really helps.
 

rawhide

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,003
I''m shocked Mickey still has pull, I feel like multiple generations have passed where he hasn't really been relevant.
 

Wiped

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
2,096
Nintendo making that much cash off two of the top 5 suggests they should be bigger, doesn't it?

Also looks like Disney really underpaid when they bought Star Wars
 
Anth0ny

Anth0ny

Member
Oct 25, 2017
47,020
I would have thought Marvel would crack the top 5... then I scrolled down and saw Spider-Man worth $23 billion AND the MCU worth $23 billion. not to mention x-men, hulk and everything else. jeeeeeesus
 
carlosrox

carlosrox

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,270
Vancouver BC
What about Marvel?? That or Star Wars feel like #1 to me.

And Hello Kitty at #2, WTF?

Shocked that Pokemon beats them all. Kinda surprised Mario makes the top 5 too when you compare it to the others.
 
Kino

Kino

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,322
I'm actually surprised Mario is that high. The franchise has hardly any presence outside of video games, and the merchandise is nowhere near as ubiquitous as the other entries on that list.
 
RalchAC

RalchAC

Member
Oct 27, 2017
825
SolVanderlyn said:
Pikachu sucks. I bet he's still the most popular.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think you could totally use Pikachu for the modern version of the Ewok line theory from HIMYM. Being someone that has grown with Pokemon, I totally and unironically love Pikachu and find him adorable.

higgsboson1997 said:
I found it baffling that people were saying that more people know Mario than Pikachu. Mario has a smaller presence in India and large parts of south east Asia than he does in the US.

Pikachu & Pokemon, on the other hand, are huge in almost every country. Having a TV cartoon and the cards really helps.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yeah. My grandparents would never know about Mario. They still bought me a Pikachu plushie for Christmas and would record the Pokemon episode of the day if I couldn't go back home in time to watch it.
 
SundaysBest

SundaysBest

Member
Oct 27, 2017
92
higgsboson1997 said:
I found it baffling that people were saying that more people know Mario than Pikachu. Mario has a smaller presence in India and large parts of south east Asia than he does in the US.



Pikachu & Pokemon, on the other hand, are huge in almost every country. Having a TV cartoon and the cards really helps.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Revenue is not the same as cultural awareness
 

Nuclear Muffin

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
4,721
Kino said:
I'm actually surprised Mario is that high. The franchise has hardly any presence outside of video games, and the merchandise is nowhere near as ubiquitous as the other entries on that list.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It used to have much more presence. This list is total gross from inception to today; so this includes the NES era... which explains a lot.

Mario is nowhere near that big today and while Pokemon has had a resurgence as of late, it's still not as big as it used to be (it's probably still No1 though as Star Wars has really taken a tumble in the last couple of years).
 
UltraMagnus

UltraMagnus

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
15,670
There's a lot of Mario merchandise these days, but I remember after the NES-boom in the 90s, there wasn't a lot (into the SNES era, N64 era, GCN days).

I recall finding a Mario plushie at a store once and immediately buying it because it was kind of a rare thing that you'd see maybe in Japan but not in North America so much in the late 90s.
 
UltraMagnus

UltraMagnus

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
15,670
Nuclear Muffin said:
It used to have much more presence. This list is total gross from inception to today; so this includes the NES era... which explains a lot.

Mario is nowhere near that big today and while Pokemon has had a resurgence as of late, it's still not as big as it used to be.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'd say Mario has had a big resurgence of late. I see lots of kids with Mario t-shirts these days, heck I see quite a few adults with them too.

The amount of Mario merchandise you can get today at an EB Games or toy store is a lot more than 15-20 years ago.
 
elLOaSTy

elLOaSTy

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,848
Nuclear Muffin said:
It used to have much more presence. This list is total gross from inception to today; so this includes the NES era... which explains a lot.

Mario is nowhere near that big today and while Pokemon has had a resurgence as of late, it's still not as big as it used to be (it's probably still No1 though as Star Wars has really taken a tumble in the last couple of years).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I feel like Pokémon is bigger than ever, but maybe I'm wrong
 
enkaisu

enkaisu

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,414
Pittsburgh
Now if we could get some proper battle animations instead of making Pikachu do a simple hop for double kick... that'd be cool :D
 
Theorymon

Theorymon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,377
Kino said:
I don't see mario tv shows, or movies, or even comics. You can go into any supermarket/dollar store and find merch for the other entries in the top 5, but the same cannot be said for Mario. At least in my experience.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Well as previously mentioned, this includes total revenue since inception, so Mario's probably in the top 5 because of the NES days, where Mario merch was a lot more common. I get the feeling this is sorta why Nintendo wants stuff like a Mario movie and amusement park. Mario certainly has merchandise, but the dude tends to stick to videogames overall, while Pokemon has its fingers in a lot of different pies.
 
KtSlime

KtSlime

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,910
Tokyo
rawhide said:
I''m shocked Mickey still has pull, I feel like multiple generations have passed where he hasn't really been relevant.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Really? He's more relevant than ever in Japan at least. There are all sorts of merchandise using him, from dresses to bags to pillows. This is excluding his Sunday morning cartoon.
 

rawhide

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,003
KtSlime said:
Really? He's more relevant than ever in Japan at least. There are all sorts of merchandise using him, from dresses to bags to pillows. This is excluding his Sunday morning cartoon.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Ninjadom said:
Over 99% of Mickey Mouse's earnings come from merchandise. Box office & DVD sales are just a small fraction.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I get that part, what I don't get is why people younger than a certain age are still buying it in such quantities. The success of Sanrio 's stuff makes sense because it's purely just a brand, but Mickey at least used to be rooted in something that existed beyond the merch machine and that something has pretty much disappeared. Good on Disney for finding a way, I guess.
 
KrigareN-

KrigareN-

Banned
Dec 13, 2017
2,156
Not that I doubt the relative ranking, but are the figures accurate? It seems to be brought up regularly and I'm wondering if all these are up to date and relevant.
 
Zippo

Zippo

Banned
Dec 8, 2017
8,256
Kino said:
I'm actually surprised Mario is that high. The franchise has hardly any presence outside of video games, and the merchandise is nowhere near as ubiquitous as the other entries on that list.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

What???

Mario is literally the most recognizable video game character in the world. He's the face of video games.
 
THE GUY

THE GUY

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,223
This list is crap and inaccurate.

Just one example, it has Toy Story with $14.1 billion dollars in merchandise sales total when Toy Story 3 alone generated $10 billion at release. There's also absences of things like Cars among other big properties.

Their figures for Star Wars, Batman, Harry Potter etc. are also most certainly inaccurate.

Basically, this isn't reliable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.