I remember when Mario Golf and Tennis were fairly current games and I thought that "Mario Sports" was the series and that, aside from handheld variations, each sequel would be a new sport with a Mario twist and we would get baseball and soccer and such, which we did end up getting. I did not expect for EACH Mario sports game to effectively be the first entry in its own series. It's all based on some real sport. How much new stuff can you do in a sequel when you're somewhat limited by the real world format of the sport?
But I was naive at the time and assumed that "there is really nowhere to go from a creative perspective" was the sort of thing Nintendo took into account when making sequels. I'm not sure if it's a coincedence that things appeared that way to me since all Nintendo IP was naturally newer at the time or if it was some fundamental change in the company's philosophy. Camelot's second N64 game was Mario Tennis, not Mario Golf 2 as another publisher would have certainly insisted on. Why wouldn't I assume that Mario Sports was the series?
I am so utterly bored of Mario spinoffs that this game could cost $1 and I wouldn't really feel like buying it. This sort of stuff comes across as just videogame product to put on the shelves.