There are some obvious game franchises that have been around forever like the Mario games and the Legend of Zelda. Also some more recent ones like Smash Bros. and Street Fighter. What are some of the franchises that have been around for a long time, but are very obscure ? What are your favorite long running franchises?
Probably FIFA or DDR (20 titles just on Playstation) are the franchises with most games. The longest running, well, i guess Space Invaders is the oldest still alive franchise. Daisenryaku could be the most obscure franchise with lots of games.
I gotta mention DOOM. It's one of my personal favorites, although it isn't obscure or unknown in the slightest. Also Dead or Alive, my favorite fighting series.
Mario. Started in Donkey Kong and appeared in many games like Punch Out, Tennis, Alleyway, etc and also starred in many games. He probably has close to 100 different games to his credit. Pong probably gets the longest running franchise even though it's not really franchise. It has appeared in bazillion clones, appeared in many of the game systems and computers, and has been redone in 3D view like Robosquash (Atari Lynx) and even DaBomb Pong. 40 years is a long time for one game to continue get ported and recreated on new systems.
If we're going to go with current franchises that have received completely new games (not enhanced remakes/compilations), probably Pac-Man (Ghostly Adventures 2 came out in 2014). Otherwise maybe Space Invaders, if Space Raiders actually counts. If we count series that started out as something other than video games, then Dungeons & Dragons got PC versions as early as 1975 (unlicensed) or 1981 (licensed)
The Ultima series started in 1981 and the latest release was 2013, so that certainly deserves a mention. That's over three decades of role-playing goodness. Also a new King's Quest is currently in development, so that might be in the running.
Momotaro Dentetsu was a popular series of games, but never released outside of Japan. The series started with Hudson, but now Konami owns the right to it. So The creator of the series is complaining about his frustration that he having with Konami, Konami seems to have abandoned it. BTW, most of the people who worked on this series are now working on the Mario Party series.
Pac-Man and Tetris have both been around for a long time. There's also Ridge Racer; that series has had a lot of games since its initial release in 1993. Virtua Fighter has existed since 1993 also, though it's been a while since the last major release for the series. Now that AM2 is no longer a separate division and Yu Suzuki doesn't work for Sega (I guess?) it's hard to say what the future of VF will be.
