Question: On what did the publisher of the Mario franchise primarily rely for its support?

full_context: Document 1: Nintendo Entertainment System: As the 1990s dawned, gamers predicted that competition from technologically superior systems such as the 16-bit Sega Mega Drive/Genesis would mean the immediate end of the NES’s dominance. Instead, during the first year of Nintendo's successor console the Super Famicom (named Super Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan), the Famicom remained the second highest-selling video game console in Japan, outselling the newer and more powerful NEC PC Engine and Sega Mega Drive by a wide margin. The console remained popular in Japan and North America until late 1993, when the demand for new NES software abruptly plummeted. The final Famicom game released in Japan is Takahashi Meijin no Bōken Jima IV (Adventure Island IV), while in North America, Wario's Woods is the final licensed game. In the wake of ever decreasing sales and the lack of new software titles, Nintendo of America officially discontinued the NES by 1995. However, Nintendo kept producing new Famicom units in Japan until September 25, 2003, and continued to repair Famicom consoles until October 31, 2007, attributing the discontinuation of support to insufficient supplies of parts.
Document 2: Nintendo Entertainment System: The Nintendo Entertainment System (commonly abbreviated as NES) is an 8 - bit home video game console that was developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was initially released in Japan as the Family Computer (Japanese: ファミリーコンピュータ, Hepburn: Famirī Konpyūta) (also known by the portmanteau abbreviation Famicom (ファミコン, Famikon) and abbreviated as FC) on July 15, 1983, and was later released in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and 1987, and Australia in 1987. In South Korea, it was known as the Hyundai Comboy (현대컴보이 Hyeondae Keomboi) and was distributed by SK Hynix which then was known as Hyundai Electronics. The best - selling gaming console of its time, the NES helped revitalize the US video game industry following the video game crash of 1983. With the NES, Nintendo introduced a now - standard business model of licensing third - party developers, authorizing them to produce and distribute titles for Nintendo's platform. It was succeeded by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
Document 3: Super Mario Bros. (film): Bob Hoskins as Mario Mario John Leguizamo as Luigi Mario Dennis Hopper as King Koopa Samantha Mathis as Princess Daisy Fisher Stevens as Iggy Richard Edson as Spike Fiona Shaw as Lena Mojo Nixon as Toad Dana Kaminski as Daniella Francesca Roberts as Big Bertha Gianni Russo as Anthony Scapelli Don Lake as Sgt. Simon Lance Henriksen as The King Frank Welker as Creature Voices Dan Castellaneta as Narrator
Document 4: Mario Bros.: Mario Bros. is a platform game published and developed for arcades by Nintendo in 1983. It was created by Shigeru Miyamoto. It has been featured as a minigame in all of the Super Mario Advance series and numerous other games. Mario Bros. has been re-released for the Wii's, Nintendo 3DS's, and Wii U's Virtual Console services in Japan, North America, Europe and Australia. It has also been re-released through Nintendo Switch Online.
Document 5: Mario Bros.: Mario Bros. (マリオブラザーズ, Mario Burazāzu) is a platform game published and developed for arcades by Nintendo in 1983. It was created by Shigeru Miyamoto. It has been featured as a minigame in the Super Mario Advance series and numerous other games. Mario Bros. has been re-released for the Wii's, Nintendo 3DS's, and Wii U's Virtual Console services in Japan, North America, Europe and Australia.
Document 6: Nintendo Entertainment System: Atari Games created a line of NES products under the name Tengen and took a different approach. The company attempted to reverse engineer the lockout chip to develop its own "Rabbit" chip. However, Tengen also obtained a description of the lockout chip from the United States Patent and Trademark Office by falsely claiming that it was required to defend against present infringement claims in a legal case. Nintendo sued Tengen for copyright infringement, which Tengen lost as it could not prove that the legally obtained patent documents had not been used by the reverse engineering team. Tengen's antitrust claims against Nintendo were never finally decided.
Document 7: List of Mario franchise characters: The "Mario" franchise is a series of video games developed and published by Nintendo that features an extensive cast of characters.
Document 8: List of Kirby characters: This is a list of fictional characters in the "Kirby" video game series developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo.
Document 9: Nintendo Entertainment System: By 1988, industry observers stated that the NES's popularity had grown so quickly that the market for Nintendo cartridges was larger than that for all home computer software. Compute! reported in 1989 that Nintendo had sold seven million NES systems in 1988, almost as many as the number of Commodore 64s sold in its first five years. "Computer game makers [are] scared stiff", the magazine said, stating that Nintendo's popularity caused most competitors to have poor sales during the previous Christmas and resulted in serious financial problems for some.
Document 10: Super Mario Bros.: Super Mario Bros. is a platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System home console. Released as a sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. was released in Japan and North America in 1985, and in Europe and Australia two years later. In Super Mario Bros., the player controls Mario and in a two - player game, a second player controls Mario's brother Luigi as he travels through the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool from the antagonist Bowser.
Document 11: Super Mario World: Super Mario World is a side - scrolling platform game in which the player controls Mario, the on - screen protagonist. The game shares similar gameplay mechanics with earlier titles in the series -- Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 3 -- but introduces several new elements. As well as the running and jumping moves found in past games, the player can float with the aid of special items, and execute new types of jumps such as the spin jump. The game has 96 levels.
Document 12: Nintendo Entertainment System: A variety of games for the FDS were released by Nintendo (including some like Super Mario Bros. which had already been released on cartridge) and third party companies such as Konami and Taito. A few unlicensed titles were made as well. However, its limitations became quickly apparent as larger ROM chips were introduced, allowing cartridges with greater than 128k of space. More advanced memory management chips (MMC) soon appeared and the FDS quickly became obsolete. Nintendo also charged developers considerable amounts of money to produce FDS games, and many refused to develop for it, instead continuing to make cartridge titles. Many FDS disks have no dust covers (except in some unlicensed and bootleg variants) and are easily prone to getting dirt on the media. In addition, the drive use a belt which breaks frequently and requires invasive replacement. After only two years, the FDS was discontinued, although vending booths remained in place until 1993 and Nintendo continued to service drives, and to rewrite and offer replacement disks until 2003.
Document 13: Nintendo Entertainment System: Several companies, refusing to pay the licensing fee or having been rejected by Nintendo, found ways to circumvent the console's authentication system. Most of these companies created circuits that used a voltage spike to temporarily disable the 10NES chip in the NES. A few unlicensed games released in Europe and Australia came in the form of a dongle that would be connected to a licensed game, in order to use the licensed game's 10NES chip for authentication. In order to combat unlicensed games, Nintendo of America threatened retailers who sold them with losing their supply of licensed titles. In addition, multiple revisions were made to the NES PCBs to prevent these games from working.
Document 14: Nintendo Entertainment System: In the longer run, however, with the NES near its end of its life many third-party publishers such as Electronic Arts supported upstart competing consoles with less strict licensing terms such as the Sega Genesis and then the PlayStation, which eroded and then took over Nintendo's dominance in the home console market, respectively. Consoles from Nintendo's rivals in the post-SNES era had always enjoyed much stronger third-party support than Nintendo, which relied more heavily on first-party games.
Document 15: Donkey Kong: The games of the first genre are mostly single - screen platform / action puzzle types, featuring Donkey Kong as the opponent in an industrial construction setting. Donkey Kong first made his appearance in the 1981 arcade machine called Donkey Kong, in which he faced Mario, now Nintendo's flagship character. This game was also the first appearance of Mario, pre-dating the well - known Super Mario Bros. by four years. In 1994, the series was revived as the Donkey Kong Country series, featuring Donkey Kong and his clan as protagonists in their native jungle setting versus a variety of anthropomorphic enemies, usually against the Kremlings, a clan of crocodiles, and their leader King K. Rool. These are side - scrolling platform games. Titles outside these two genres have included rhythm games (Donkey Konga), racing games (Diddy Kong Racing), and edutainment (Donkey Kong Jr. Math).
ground_truth: first-party games
sub_queries: Mario franchise >> publisher Answer: Nintendo
Nintendo relied primarily on what for its support? Answer: first-party games