Would you be more interested in Splatoon if it starred Mario?

New Wii U shooter Splatoon could have starred Nintendo mascot Mario instead of a big squid.

That's according to Shigeru Miyamoto, who told Edge magazine that the company had a back-and-forth over whether to create truly new IP or just throw some familiar characters in it.

“There were heated debates over who the main player character should be," said Miyamoto, according to Nintendo Everything. "Whether it should be Mario, or a squid.

"When we talked about the possibility of it being Mario, of course we could think of the advantages: anybody would be willing to touch it as soon as we announced that we had the new Mario game. But at the same time, we had some worries. If it were Mario, we wouldn’t be able to create any new IP.”

So now you know. Mario karting, Mario playing tennis, Mario RPGing and Mario brawling are all fine, but Mario shooting an ink gun is going too far.