So recently Games Radar released a list named by the subject of this thread, found here: http://www.gamesradar.com/us/psp/game/news/article.jsp?articleId=20070123142252250050

So, in an effort to generate actual discourse that doesn't end in two posts with Rahul's rude reply, what are your feelings regarding these franchises, are you pleased/saddened to see them go the way they have, and do you think they should've been around this long in the first place?

Many of these series simply fail to reiterate their winning formula, and in attempting a new angle fail miserably. Number Six, Megaman, strikes a chord with me because it has to be the only series on that list that sticks so cohesively to its formula but seems to have gone under anyway. That is, Rockman has stagnated so much that there is little incentive in picking him up again save for nostalgic motivations. Nevertheless, I found Mega Man X: Command Mission to be a great deal of fun, which essentially means to me that crossing over into other genres is a good way to keep the vitality of a series going.

Focusing on that idea a little more, creating a title in the same genre as its predecessor allows you to compare it directly. But turning Madden into a first person shooter would be so mind-bogglingly different that you simply couldn't say whether it was better than Madden '05/'06'/'07/'0-fucking million simply because of the staggering genre differences.

Thoughts?