Of course everyone is going to say Mario. (except for Watahboi)
I'm going with the old school Crash Bandicoot. He was the man back when he first appeared. <3
I voted Mario, but looking back, Crash was the first big game of my career (which brought me onto buying 30 PS1 games, 130 PS2 games) and now I wish I'd voted him :X
For sure. After his game became one of the first to get a 10/10 frin IGN there was loads of hype surrounding him. Plus his appearancein smash brothers boosted his popularity among the nintendo fans making him gaming maskot of the year in my book.