25 Years of Super Mario Bros. 190
harrymcc writes "On September 13th 1985, Nintendo released Super Mario Bros. for the Famicom (NES) in Japan. It went on to become the best-selling video game of all time, a title it only recently lost. Over at Technologizer, Benj Edwards is celebrating the anniversary with a look at some of the weirdest variations, spinoffs, and tributes the game has inspired over the years, from edibles to art projects."
The Guardian's games blog adds a bunch of Mario-related trivia, and CVG attempts to explain the history of Mario games. Nintendo is capitalizing on the anniversary by announcing an upcoming collection of classic Mario games (Japanese site, English explanation) that have been ported to the Wii.
Heads up on that Mario collection (Score:4, Informative)
it's just a Wii port of Mario All Stars that came out in the US for SNES, same graphics and all.
The booklet and the soundtrack seem interesting packins though.
really? (Score:1, Informative)
mario is older than me by a month and a day!
And today is also... (Score:4, Informative)
The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... (Score:5, Informative)
For anyone wondering, the "best-selling video game of all time" is Wii Sports.
Re:Who's #1 then (Score:1, Informative)
According to the SMB Wikipedia article, its Wii Sports. Purportedly because it comes bundled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros.#cite_note-3
Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement (Score:1, Informative)
The PC Mario game that went on becoming Commander Keen.
Re:Twenty-five years? (Score:4, Informative)
You think that's old? It's been 33 years since I first laid hands on an Atari console (still one of my favorite machines) with its Commodore-produced 6502 CPU and TIA sound/graphics chip (with an amazing 30x20 resolution).
The Famicom was released in 1983 so we're talking about 27 year old technology! Its contemporaries were the Intellivision, Colecovision, Atari 5200 SuperSystem, Apple IIc/e, and C=64. (The Mac and Amiga didn't even exist yet.) Ancient, old, ancient technology. But hella fun.
Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... (Score:3, Informative)
Well you could try this [wikipedia.org]. It lists Wii Sports at over 66 million, which is over twice the total number of 2600's sold (according to this [wikipedia.org]). It's kind of in a league of it's own, but then it was also bundled with the console which disqualifies it from the list in some people's eyes. The highest selling unbundled game is Wii Play AFAIK.
Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... (Score:3, Informative)
May we have a citation for your claim that Wii Sports is the best-selling?
Here [infoplease.com] you [industrygamers.com] go [n4g.com].
Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Twenty-five years? (Score:2, Informative)
25 years later, I'm still trying to get to the end.
1-1 to 1-2
1-2 to 4-1 via warp
4-1 to 4-2
4-2 to 8-1 via warp
8-1 to 8-2
8-2 to 8-3
8-3 to 8-4
Be careful
Run under the king
Grab the axe
game over.
If you still can't do it, use savestates. Once you've done it once, the next few times are a breeze.
Do it with a few friends and drinks to make it even more fun.
Interesting product but not economical (Score:2, Informative)
Re:One of Commodore's best sellers (Score:4, Informative)
Commodore had nothing to do with the 6502
MOS was owned by Commodore. i.e. Same company. In fact one reason Commodore VIC-20 and 64 was so much cheaper than the competition was because they charged Atari, Apple, et cetera thrice the price that Commodore charged itself, so they could sell computers at only $150 each. Atari/Apple couldn't even get close.
What the collection *should* be... (Score:3, Informative)
Price: $20
That's the bare minimum acceptable product celebrating the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros.
For a few dollars more they could include the various GameBoy incarnations of Super Mario Bros, and maybe throw in the old Mario Bros for good measure.
Twenty-five years and all they do is re-release Super Mario All Stars? Please.
Of course, most of these games (along with their source) should belong to the Public Domain by now, but that's another story.
Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... (Score:4, Informative)
Super Mario Bros. was bundled with the console originally too. Presumably we weren't disqualifying that.
Mine was a SMB/Duck Hunt twin-pak, and was awesome I might add.
Re:Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement (Score:2, Informative)
That's what (s)he is saying. Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement was a PC clone of Super Mario Bros (3, I think). After Nintendo rejected their offer to port it to PC they made Commander Keen.