Well this was brought up in the last podcast as a question Ichigo had (surprised no mentioned it...me wondering if anyone actually listens to them now ) but as I said on there, Link will never, I repeat NEVER, replace Mario. It is impossible, you go anywhere and you say the name Mario and instantly people think of Nintendo. Mario was around in the beginning on Donkey Kong, Mario Bros. and of course Super Mario Bros.

Also, play as Snake on SSBB against Mario in Snake's stage and activate his intercom so he communicates with someone and they will even talk about how Mario is the mascot and known throughout the world. And while Zelda and Mario pretty much get the same amount of games released on each system doing their main thing (Mario as platformer, Zelda as action/adventure) Mario triples, maybe quadruples Link in games because there are games like Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario Strikers, etc. When Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf hope into go-karts then you can actually say that Link will become the new mascot...but it will never happen.