supermario
Latest
Fuzzy logic: Lara Croft > Mario?
According to Eidos' SCI's Ian Livingstone, Tomb Raider vixen Lara Croft is "the most famous character in gaming." Interviewer Paul Loughrey of GamesIndustry.biz then questions whether or not he means most famous ... other than Mario. Livingstone adamantly asserts that Mrs. Croft is indeed more popular than Nintendo's gaming icon."Well, Mario is still very much within the games niche, whereas Lara has gone beyond that thanks to two blockbuster films, for example. She's graced the covers of thousands of not just games journals, but lifestyle journals as well."We'll admit, much to our chagrin, that Super Mario Bros. film was not the glorious re-imagining of Nintendo's flagship series, nor was it a box office smash (the total domestic gross was $20.9 million, which would be approximately $32.3 million today when adjusted for ticket price inflation). But Mario, we'd argue, is still more of a household name. While there is no quantitative backing to either assertions, we'd like to point out that Livingstone's support is rather inefficient. In 1966, John Lennon exclaimed that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus." And while we suspect those zany Brits did grace more magazine covers than the founder of Christianity, it's still a stretch to elevate a band over a world religion.And though the Mario film sunk, his power was seen elsewhere in pop culture. Not to mention his games tend to do better, both financially and critically.
"He's a collector"
Brett Martin is 26. He lives in Colorado with his wife. And, by his estimation, owns roughly 10,000 to 15,000 individual pieces of gaming memorabilia. And you thought you were a fanboy...
CNN Money sees Wii launching as early as September [update 1]
The words of CNN Money's Chris Morris, which suggest a Wii launch in late September or early October, are certainly tantalizing and not entirely unrealistic. Getting the machine onto store shelves and into our loving, embarrassingly weak arms would give Nintendo a healthy lead on the PS3 and Microsoft's glut of holiday titles, not to mention the joy it would grant fans of intergalactic bounty hunters and pointy-eared archers. Morris cites an earlier analyst report by P.J. McNealy of American Technology Research which notes that Nintendo already began manufacturing final retail consoles on 21 June, providing ample time until a prospective September launch.Further evidence comes in the less sturdy form of past release dates of Nintendo consoles, with only the Gamecube missing an October or September release window. Of course, if the Wii launches worldwide immediately, one would expect a strategy similar to that of the DS launch -- that one happened in November as well. While it's not entirely unfeasible, Morris' suggestion is still swathed in speculation. With no details available on manufacturing, Nintendo may have simply started up the production line early (if they did so at all) to avoid launch shortages which plagued the Xbox 360 and are sure to plague Sony's machine.Unfortunately, it looks like the only words we can fully trust right now are the ones from official (and sober) Nintendo men and women.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!][Update 1: Nintendo has (predictably) put the kibosh on this one, with a spokesperson stating, "There's no change in our plan to release the console in the last quarter of this year."]
DS Lite pwned Japan in June
As if those weekly hardware charts weren't enough to convince you, Next Generation has put up a report that once again underlines just how well the DS Lite is performing in Japan. The words "ridiculous", "ludicrous" and "criminal" certainly spring to mind when noting that the Lite sold 575,000 units last month, making for a grand total of 2.6 million thus far. New Super Mario Bros. has been flying off the shelves with equal aplomb, right into the hands of 1.8 million nostalgia-craving gamers. It has become one of eight DS games to break through the meticulously guarded million sold barrier. As part of those who initially thought the DS to be a silly device that would be beaten to a pulp in the handheld gaming ghetto, we've been proven wrong again and again. And again. Let's be honest now. Did you expect this to happen back in 2004?
New Super Mario now stomping across Europe
Not content with conquering Japan and America, the newly revamped, newly released, New Super Mario Bros. now set its non-insidious sights on Europe, land of collosseums, queens and curiously leaning constructions. Nintendo of Europe has announced that the game has shipped to stores, just in time to be snatched up over the weekend. Expect Mario to hit his presumed homeland of Italy in full force, devouring mushrooms and smashing bricks, though sadly not fixing leaky plumping. If you haven't purchased the game already, check out its updated official site and catch yourself whistling along to the music.
Nintendo plays numbers game, loses
Nintendo's most recent press release exhibits the interesting quality of simultaneously telling us something we already knew and something we didn't. The first part should be fairly obvious if you boast any familiarity with portly Italian plumbers: New Super Mario Bros. for the DS is a huge success in North America -- certainly nothing worthy of a collective gasp. Selling over 500,000 copies since its May release, the shell-smashing, block-bashing retro platforming trip has practically given Nintendo permission to nonchalantly reach into your pocket, feel around for a few seconds and make off with your wallet. What we weren't aware of, however, is that Nintendo really should have been sticking their hand into your front shirt pocket. That's where your calculator is. Nintendo claims that after "just 35 days on store shelves," the game has had a sell-through rate of "more than 20 every minute since the game went on sale May 15." O RLY?Be sure to mock us if our primitive thought processes are incorrect, but let's consider for a moment that there are 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour. That's 1,440 minutes a day, and so the 35 days that New Super Mario Bros. has been on sale (even though its been longer than that now) equates to 50,400 minutes. Divide 500,000 by that number and we get ... just under 10 copies sold per minute. Had Nintendo actually sold 20 copies per minute, they would have already hit over a million, and we're pretty sure that would warrant a press release all on its own. Dr. Kawashima is going to be so disappointed.
May NPD sales: Plumber popularity soars
According to the NPD group's thorough and unusually keen sales analysis, Mario's latest block-bashing, Koopa-kicking, shell-sliding adventure was the bestselling game in the US for the merry month of May. Following closely on the portly plumber's hopping heels was Brain Age, nestled snugly in third place. It seems that New Super Mario Bros. was just the thing to wean gamers off that nasty heroine addiction.The Top 20 best-selling titles for May according to NPD: New Super Mario Bros. (DS) Kingdom Hearts II (PS2) Brain Age: Train Your Brain In Minutes a Day (DS) God of War (PS2) Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (Xbox 360) Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360) MLB '06: The Show (PS2) Guitar Hero (with Guitar) (PS2) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2) Kingdom Hearts (PS2) X-Men: The Official Game (PS2) Over the Hedge (PS2) Fight Night Round 3 (Xbox 360) FIFA World Cup 2006 (PS2) The Godfather: The Game (PS2) Gran Turismo 4 (PS2) Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (Xbox 360) Midnight Club 3: Dub Ed Remix (PS2) Major League Baseball 2K6 (PS2) Major League Baseball 2K6 (Xbox 360)
Japanese software chart, 22-28 May: Mario madness
Giving his competitors a veritable butt-stomp, Mario finds himself at the very top of the Japanese software sales chart this week -- nearly 900,000 people donned their rose-colored glasses and marched out of a store with a copy of the portly plumber's retro adventure. [DS] New Super Mario Bros. [DS] Brain Training 2 [DS] Brain Training for Adults [PSP] Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Portable [DS] Tetris DS [PS2] Kimikiss [PS2] World Soccer Winning Eleven 10 [DS] English Training [DS] Animal Crossing: Wild World [PS2] Jikkyou Powerful Major League
Wii impressions: the E3 experience
Due to how the Joystiq staff divided the Wii games' coverage, I ended up posting about a game that needs a lot of work (Madden), a game that needs a little (Metroid Prime 3), a couple of games that show promise (WarioWare & Elebits), and a game that is simply a gimmick (Final Furlong). I also played: Super Mario Galaxy, RedSteel, Twilight Princess, and Tennis. I'm not convinced that, at this stage, the Wiimote and nunchaku add-on are superior to a gamepad. Miyamoto, speaking last night at a developer's event, said that after becoming comfortable with the Wiimote, it's now impossible for him to go back. I'm not there yet, and I know I'm not alone. It's gonna take a lot of work to rewire how we, longtime gamers, play video games. It's important for Nintendo to understand this, and I believe they do.
Wii impressions: Super Mario Galaxy
Though players have long become accustomed to controlling Nintendo's iconic and portly plumber, Super Mario Galaxy marks somewhat of a departure from that tradition. You still control Mario's movements with the analogue stick on the left nunchuck, but the wiimote in your right hand actually allows you to exert an influence on the world itself. A little on-screen star indicates where the wiimote is pointing and by holding down the B-button, you can grab onto various items and structures. For instance, if you run the cursor through a patch of flowers, it willl gently rustle in reaction to the presence of your invisible hand. While you have Mario running and jumping about and doing his usual platforming, you can manipulate objects in the environment in order to help him out.The game world seems to be comprised of a bunch of little planets floating in space, with Mario seeking out different ways to travel between them. One method of transportation is what appears to be a giant elastic plant. Mario climbs to the top and, using your wiimote, you grab onto the plant, stretch it into one direction and then release the button to have Mario slingshot to a different panet. It's an extremely intuitive experience and really creates the impression that you are reaching into Mario's little universe and making things a little easier for him. You can also stun and tip over the meandering Goombas by running your cursor across them, allowing Mario to finish them off with a good 'ole butt-stomp. Mario's usual repertoire of moves remains intact, with a vigorous shake of the wiimote activating a furious spinning attack. It's effective for clobbering enemies and activating the various star lifts scattered across the levels. The levels themselves look excellent from a graphical standpoint, boasting some stylish lighting effects and crisp and colorful textures. As far as depictions of plumbers in outer space go, I'd say this is probably the best one I've seen. Super Mario Galaxy really does make up for a lot of the graphical shortcomings of other Wii games. In fact, its unusual and engaging control system provides one of the best glimpses of the system's potential we've seen so far.
Super Mario Revolution sighting, maybe
OnNintendo.com has posted two images — snagged from NintendoGlobal.net — of an unidentified Mario title. Of course, since these images are unidentified, they are likely fake, concocted by an overactive Photoshop buff.It's worth noting that copyright tags have been pasted on the images, accompanied by resolution values. The tag on the image to the left reads: 2006 Nintendo 480i; to the right: 2006 Nintendo 480p.
Mario question cube girls let off
Remember those five teenage girls from Ravenna, Ohio, who on the eve of April first placed seventeen Mario Bros. inspired question cubes around town? Well, after HAZMAT, the Fire Dept. and the five-O were called in and the dust settled it looked like those little ladies were in for some serious trouble. Though it turns out the town of 12,000's dropping the case against them, the case prosecutor stating of the squeaky-clean teens he does "not believe that they had any bad or malicious intentions." Gee, ya think? Sure, we can understand a little why some people who didn't ever play Mario (unlike Engadget or our readers) might have gotten concerned at the sight of these boxes, but we're just glad that a slight case of Midwest terrorist hysteria didn't ultimately result in some crazed teenage witch hunt.[Via Joystiq]
New Super Mario undelayed, out May 15th
The official website for the upcoming DS title, New Super Mario Bros., has been updated again. No more delays this time, instead Nintendo has managed to drop the brothers Mario on us a week earlier! Seeing as how the DS Lite is "due in May" in North America, we used simple logic, some grade school arithmetic, our intimate knowledge of the Gregorian calendar, and more than a little speculation, to arrive at the possibility that the DS Lite might accompany NSMB May 15th, just days after E3! Oh shiny DS Lite / Mario combo attack, you make us weak in the knees.[Thanks, Princess Zelda]
DS Lite in May says EGM
An EGM scan pretty much confirms what we've all been thinking: The DS Lite looks set to launch on 21 May, the same day New Super Mario Bros. bounces into stores. Don't worry--the game will still work on the old DS![Via Joystiq]
New Super Mario Bros. only compatible with DS Lite
In a statement issued today, Nintendo have confirmed that Mario's triumphant return to smashing bricks with his head and chasing after mushrooms in New Super Mario Bros. is poised to help usher in the North American launch of the DS Lite, perhaps to a degree that few gamers were expecting. New Super Mario Bros. will only be compatible with the DS Lite and will not work with the original machine. Nintendo's name-taking, posterior-assaulting marketing guru, Reggie Fills-Aimes, explained that players would be able to see why this decision was made."Players won't be able to see. On the original DS, I mean. The screens on the old system are simply much too dark, making the new Mushroom Kingdom almost impossible to navigate. We had always planned to make New Super Mario Bros. a premier title for the Lite and its superior screens, and what better way to make it exclusive to that system?"This lends more weight to the earlier murmurings of a Mario DS Lite bundle hitting US shores, though Reggie was quick to point out that the recent shortages in Japan may cause the system to launch a bit later than the game itself."New Super Mario Bros. should be out for a little while before the DS Lite, which is a great way of starting the marketing train rolling. The actual system won't take long to catch up though--two months at most."The Lite-only New Super Mario Bros. is currently slated for release on 21 March.[Update: Just in case you're reading this late, this story was an evil, bogus April Fool's trick. Shame on me.]
Super Mario DS Lite bundle pack spotted
According to potentially delusional listings on the EB Games and Gamestop websites, the DS Lite is set to barge into American homes with a startled Mario and Co. in tow. The online retailer seems to think that New Super Mario Bros. (at least we assume it's the New variant) will be forming part of a bundle deal with Nintendo's infinitely desirable DS redesign. Since we predicted this very event last week, we're naturally predisposed to put our worn stamp of approval on this bit of news.However, we find ourselves perturbed by some of the details on the pages that seem...less plausible. As wonderful as it would be to have this DS Lite bundle launch on the first day of May (about two weeks before the included game is meant to come out) for a mere $9.99, something tells us that this won't come to pass. Placeholder data? Maybe. Desirable product? Definitely.[Thanks yoshi!][Update: Some of our sharp readers have figured out these listings and pointed out out that the item in question is actually a Lite variant of a popular accessory pack. Still, our question about whether or not a DS Lite Mario bundle is something you'd want remains. Keep those comments coming!]
Top 10 most memorable villains
IGN has posted a list that is sure to generate some grumbling. But that's what's to be expected anytime you try to cram the baddest evildoers into a list of ten. Here goes: #10 - Bowser (Super Mario) #9 - Dr. Robotnik (Sonic) #8 - Dracula (Castlevania) #7 - Evil Otto (Berzerk) #6 - Psycho Mantis (MGS) #5 - Kerrigan (Starcraft) #4 - SHODAN (System Shock) #3 - Wesker (Resident Evil) #2 - Sephiroth (FFVII) #1 - The Nazis ("too many games to count") What?! No Ganondorf? Blasphemy. So how does your list compare?
