How Pokemon's anniversary stacks up against Mario & Zelda

The Pokemon Company has revealed its massive 30th-anniversary lineup, including two new mainline RPGs, a town-building spinoff, and the immediate release of Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen on the Nintendo Switch. The February 27 Pokemon Presents broadcast laid out a yearlong roadmap that puts Nintendo's other major franchise milestones to shame. I am personally a much bigger fan of Mario and Zelda than I am of Pokemon. Seeing the sheer volume of announcements today makes me happy for the monster-catching crowd, but it also highlights how unevenly Nintendo treats its biggest birthdays.

Two new RPGs, GameCube ports, and a Lego set

The sheer scale of the Pokemon 30th anniversary is staggering. Game Freak is developing Pokemon Winds and Pokemon Waves for the Nintendo Switch 2, with a global launch planned for 2027. These open-world titles will introduce three new starters: a Grass-type named Browt, a Fire-type named Pombon, and a Water-type named Gecqua. They will also be the first games in the series to support Brazilian Portuguese.

Before those arrive, Switch 2 owners are getting a cozy town-building game called Pokemon Pokopia in March 2026. A competitive battler named Pokemon Champions will follow in April. Switch owners can also download the 2004 Game Boy Advance remakes Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen right now.

The retro announcements go deeper than Game Boy Advance titles. Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness & Pokemon Colosseum are coming to the Nintendo GameCube Classics app on Switch 2 in March 2026.

Outside of software, the merchandising push is relentless. The Pokemon Company kicked things off with a Super Bowl commercial and a massive merchandise event in Japan. Fans are getting the first-ever LEGO Pokemon sets, a physical Game Boy Jukebox that plays 45 tracks from the original Kanto games, and a dedicated PokemonXP convention in San Francisco. The Pokemon Center is also selling a 30th Collection that includes a monochrome plush of Pikachu's original chunky Game Boy sprite and a diorama of the S.S. Anne.

Mario gets limited-time weirdness

When I look back at how Nintendo handled Mario's recent milestones, the contrast is sharp. Mario's 30th anniversary in 2015 gave us Super Mario Maker, which was an excellent celebration of the franchise's 2D history. The 35th anniversary from 2020 to 2021 introduced a bizarre artificial scarcity model.

Nintendo released Super Mario 3D All-Stars, the Super Mario Bros. 35 battle royale, and a dedicated Game & Watch handheld. Then, on March 31, 2021, the company deleted the digital version of 3D All-Stars from the eShop, shut down the battle royale servers, and stopped shipping the Game & Watch. 3D All-Stars seemed like a last minute gift when you forgot about someone's birthday. A drug store pickup. It's cover art seem thrown together in Photoshop 3.0. The games barely seemed ported. Definitely no Digital Eclipse like polish.

The plumber's 40th anniversary is currently underway. A September 2025 Nintendo Direct kicked things off by announcing The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Mario Tennis Fever, and a Switch 2 edition of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. The Nintendo Museum in Kyoto also launched a special anniversary play ticket and lighting display. It is a solid lineup, but it feels scattered compared to the unified "What's Your Favorite?" campaign driving the Pokemon celebration.

Still waiting on that Minish Cap remaster

This brings me to The Legend of Zelda. The franchise shares its 40th anniversary year with Pokemon in 2026, but the treatment could not be more different.

Zelda's 30th anniversary in 2016 brought us Twilight Princess HD for the Wii U and some amiibo figures. The 35th anniversary in 2021 yielded Skyward Sword HD, a set of themed Joy-Con controllers, and a Zelda Game & Watch. These were welcome releases, but they hardly felt like massive franchise-wide events.

We are still early in 2026, so Nintendo has time to announce something big for Zelda's 40th birthday. I am not holding my breath for a massive blowout on the scale of Pokemon Winds and Waves. What I really want is a proper remaster of The Minish Cap, but I suspect we will get a smaller port or perhaps just some commemorative merchandise.

Pokemon operates as its own massive entity under The Pokemon Company, which explains why its anniversaries feel like global holidays. They have the infrastructure to coordinate trading card expansions, mobile game updates, and massive retail partnerships all at once. Mario and Zelda are strictly Nintendo operations. The result is that Pokemon gets a cohesive multimedia festival. Mario gets his games deleted from the internet, and Zelda gets a nice watch.