I find it funny how a lot of Nintendo's longest lasting series debuted in really awkward circumstances that would basically be a death kneel for anything else.
Pikmin was GameCube, Splatoon was Wii U, Animal Crossing was an N64 game exclusive to the region where the hardware was least popular, Pokemon was a B&W Game Boy game mere months before the Color and multiple years after 3D became the norm, Kirby's second game was a two-years-post-SNES NES game, Mario Tennis was a double punch of Virtual Boy followed by late N64, Xenoblade had a shady GameStop exclusive deal, even Donkey Kong (and by extension Mario) had a really rocky arcade launch that led to the creation of Crazy Kong.
Pikmin was GameCube, Splatoon was Wii U, Animal Crossing was an N64 game exclusive to the region where the hardware was least popular, Pokemon was a B&W Game Boy game mere months before the Color and multiple years after 3D became the norm, Kirby's second game was a two-years-post-SNES NES game, Mario Tennis was a double punch of Virtual Boy followed by late N64, Xenoblade had a shady GameStop exclusive deal, even Donkey Kong (and by extension Mario) had a really rocky arcade launch that led to the creation of Crazy Kong.
