Happy Birthday Mario

Many of you may not know this, but yesterday was Super Mario’s 25th anniversary. It was yesterday, 25 years ago that Super Mario first appeared on the Famicom in Japan. Before this Mario had appeared in Donkey Kong and Mario Bros., but it was with the release of Super Mario Bros. that made Mario a household name. Super Mario Bros. went on to selling over 40 Million units in the last 25 years. What is uncertain however is whether Super Mario Bros. sold over 40 million units because of its bundling with the NES systems.

One fun little fact is that Super Mario was the best selling videogame ever up until Wii Sports came out and was bundled with the Wii. Perhaps more games should come bundled to the console it does seem to work out for these games. In any case, happy birthday Mario, may you enjoy many more gaming years.

VIA

Super Mario Bros. meets The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien!

Nintendo Drops the Ball on Marketing Again

In two days, Nintendo will be releasing Super Mario Galaxy, which is probably there biggest game to date to release for the Nintendo Wii.  But where is the advertising?  Has anyone seen a commercial for it?  It wasn't until today that I saw a commercial for this game, even though it releases Wednesday.  There are no bill boards or other types of ads which you would think would accompany the release of one of there top franchises, but there is nothing.  So I have to ask.  What's up with the marketing?

This by the way is not the first time that there was near zero marketing for a Nintendo game.  In August, Nintendo released the game Metroid Prime 3: Corruption with literally zero marketing.  This lead to Matt Casamassina (an editor at IGN) to write an editorial on how Nintendo dropped the ball on marketing that game and yet here we are again, just a few months later, with zero marketing for Super Mario Galaxy. 

Now this to me just doesn't make sense.  And probably never will.  Then again,  maybe I've been hiding under a rock for the last several months and I really don't know what I'm talking about.  So, now that I've finished my rant, I thought I would let you see the ad for the game.  That is of course if you haven't seen it.  Enjoy!