Mario Launch Pics: Bigger Than Paris Hilton, Barbie And Britney

Gamers dressed as cartoon Italian plumbers in old London town

Posted by Staff
It’sa here! Super Mario Galaxy launches today and Nintendo celebrated the launch of one of SPOnG’s games of 2007 in traditional style last night, inviting lots of eager fans to gather in central London, dressed up as their favourite videogame character (see pics here and below).

Super Mario Galaxy is simply glorious. SPOnG gave it a whopping 98% score in our recent review. It’s one of the very few games that you need to be playing this winter. It’s the second reason that gamers should hunt down a Wii (nod to Twilight Princess here, even though that game was admittedly a glorified GameCube title).

Eager Nintendo fanboys and girls had been queuing up all day with more than 500 gathered by the time of the early evening launch shenanigans.

The first gamer in the queue told ITN news last night: "It's so beautiful and really pushing the Wii to what it can do. It shows the other competitors that gameplay is better than everything else" - yup, that sounds exactly like the kind of thing an untrained person on a queue would say.

Cynical? Us?

"The launch of Super Mario Galaxy is an exciting new adventure for both Mario and Wii. The famous little Italian plumber is gaming's most iconic male character and is loved by millions of fans both young and old across the globe," Said David Yarnton, General Manager, Nintendo UK.

Super Mario Galaxy is expected to shift over 200 million units worldwide - remember that figure - we are also trying to find out over exactly what period those 200 million units are to be sold.

Anyway... on another issue: a recent survey of over 1,000 adults by Nintendo UK found that Mario is actually more recognisable than Paris Hilton and Justin Timberlake, with 69% recognising Mario and only 53% naming Paris Hilton and 51% identifying Justin Timberlake.

The mere thought of Justin Timberlake, Paris Hilton and Mario all in one place... well... it makes you shudder. Also, next time Ninty does a recognition comparison - maybe it could use some less awesomely transitory figures. How about, is Mario more recognisable than:

a) Jesus Christ?
b) Elvis?
c) Morecombe and / or Wise?
d) SpongeBob Square Pants?
e) Pele?
f) Superman?

(Your ideas to the Forum please)
Companies:
Games:

Comments

The 9000 16 Nov 2007 16:23
1/2
The expected 200 million sales figure is a wildly misunderstood stat by ITV - Nintendo issued a press release saying they hoped Super Mario Galaxy would push francise (as in every mario game ever) sales over the 200 million mark.

Considering Super Mario Bros 3 (the biggest selling videogame of all time) managed sales of 40 million, forecasting sales of 200 million for Galaxy seems a bit spastically optimistic.
Jared Sol 17 Nov 2007 14:22
2/2
Ah, those events were fun. In birmingham, i managed to snag 5th place in line, and gt free domino's pizza as well! All in all, the best hlf an hour of queueing i've ever had.
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