I seriously doubt Nintendo would ever ditch Mario - it is a major cash cow for them, is their mascot after all. Most of their quality games have involved Mario too.
Ack wrote:I honestly think the Playstation killed the mascot bit when it tried getting Crash Bandicoot to do it. That was...well, let's just say I wasn't upset when I saw that property die.
Crash was awesome. All of the Crash games made by Naughty Dog were fun and the commercial where crash calls out Mario with a megaphone at Nintendo HQ was one of the funniest gaming commercials ever. I think what really killed mascots is that the gaming audience grew up. People now are more interested in space marines and criminals than cute talking animals.