Which is a more successful franchise: Mario or Zelda?

Comparing both franchises, which would you say is the more successful franchise? Does Mario reign supreme? Or does Legend of Zelda topple the video game giant?

Discuss, yo

I mean, Mario. Mario not only has main series games, but party games, sports games, spinoff games, etc.

I am not a Mario Fan by any means, and I love Zelda, but we gotta admit Mario has had much more success than Zelda. I mean both franchises are much more popular, but Mario has reached the hands of many more people, and there's very few people who don't know who Mario is.

In terms of sales or overall quality? Mario is the best selling game franchise of all time so I'd be hard press to argue against it. Just the number of great games from about every genre imaginable is pretty incredible. I think you could even argue at Pokemon being a more successful franchise than Zelda.

I love Legend Zelda so much more than Super Mario, but when you look at humanity as a whole, Mario is much more popular. A sizable group of people still think that Link is Zelda, but nobody's confusing Peach or even Luigi for Mario. xD

Furthermore, Legend of Zelda's fans are mostly people who play video games, while Super Mario's fan base extends beyond even that.

the loz is incredible but mario has been beaten with the money stick for so long i don't think there's much competition

Mario has been around longer than LoZ, and they have many other games that aren't main series. They have all the sports spin offs, Mario Kart, and Mario Party.

I'm going to say Mario has been more successful.

This is pretty easy to determine: Mario has objectively sold far more (as has Pokémon, for the person who brought it up). Mario is the most successful video game franchise in gaming history.

Do I think it's a better franchise? Now that's a less objective, more debatable question - and I'd favor Zelda there.