Hi Malstrom,
As always, it’s a great treat to read your website. It’s amazing how much your talk of disruption has influenced the way I read business and entertainment news. It’s really fascinating!
I don’t often disagree, but sometimes I think you might be a bit harsh on Mario Galaxy.
It’s sold nearly as much as Halo 3, the XBreaks signature game, and is at roughly 8m to 11m withNew Super Mario Bros at similar weeks sold. Of course, the future doesn’t look nearly as bright for Galaxy in terms of slope on the graph, but I think 8 million isn’t bad for the kind of game it is, which is for the core audience. It gets Nintendo at the top of gamerankings, etc. And with NSMB Wii as a set, I think everyone will be happy.
I say this as someone who loved 2d mario, speed runs 1 still, and skipped out on N64 and Gamecubecompletely, only to come back with Wii. Of course, I’ve downloaded all the 2D Mario’s with the virtual console, but Galaxy gets a fair bit of play from me still. Mostly just for the music and epic ‘feeling’. By offering 2 and 3D, I think Nintendo can satisfy everyone.
Take care! And I hope you keep posting when you have time.
But you agree with me! Look at what you said:
Of course, I’ve downloaded all the 2D Mario’s with the virtual console, but Galaxy gets a fair bit of play from me still. Mostly just for the music and epic ‘feeling’.
I agree that Mario Galaxy has fantastic music and great production values. But if you take that away, I don’t see too many people enthusiastic about the gameplay (of getting stars) or the content of floating around space or walking on spheres.
Then you say:
By offering 2 and 3D, I think Nintendo can satisfy everyone.
I agree, fully. 2d Mario, as well as 3d Mario, should be a staple on every Nintendo console just as Mario Kart is.
Unfortunately, Nintendo is not doing that. We now have two 3d Marios. Even before we get the first real Zelda Wii game, we already have a sequel to the 3d Mario Wii game!!!
If Nintendo truly wanted to satisfy everyone, instead of making a Mario Galaxy 2, it would make a Starfox Wii or a Pikmin 3 or a Donkey Kong Wii or something else. Perhaps even something brand new.
It is the Nintendo tradition to bring its franchises over to the new console as well as add some new ones. We can see this in how the SNES unfolded, how the N64 unfolded, as well as the Gamecube. Some series became curiously absent such as Metroid from the N64. But, nevertheless, the Nintendo fan expects Nintendo to slowly bring over the franchises with, at least, one installment on the console.
This is why I have a problem with Galaxy 2 and the Metroid Manga game. It is not that I do not want 3d Mario on the Wii, it is that I do not want every game to be 3d Mario. We’ve already had a 3d Mario game on the console. Why do we need more? It will not sell as well as the original Galaxy game. If people want the 3d Mario experience, they can already have it. If you want the Starfox, Pikmin, or F-Zero experience, too bad.
Someone at Nintendo would rather make sequels to games they want rather than putting out Wii incarnations of games you want. As a Wii consumer, I don’t see the point of putting out more games of the same exact experience while neglecting other experiences. Wii Sports and Wii Fit deserve sequels because they are not only the main drivers behind the Wii growth, they are the drivers behind motion control gameplay. Super Mario Galaxy isn’t driving the Wii growth or motion controls. Its sales are a shadow compared to Mario Madness of the 1980s (which is what I compare every Mario game to). Note that New Super Mario Brothers DS sales match the Mario Madness craze of the 1980s.
As far as I can tell, Mario Galaxy 2 is being made only because Miyamoto wants to “because I have ideas! Look! A drill where you can make a tunnel to the other side of the planet! Like digging to China!!!”. Ugh. This is why, I said, it sounds like developer vanity. (So does the Metroid game, btw. They cannot honestly think Metroid Manga is going to outsell Metroid Prime. It sounds like some developer in Japan has a bug about what he wants Metroid to be.)
Pretend Nintendo announced a Mario Kart Wii 2. Now, Mario Kart Wii is a colossal seller. No one can dispute that. A sequel could make sense in an ‘easy money’ type of way. But would a Mario Kart Wii 2 help drive growth to the system? No. The Mario Kart experience is already there. Why have more?
With the NES, it made sense for there to be sequels to Super Mario Brothers and Zelda because they were massive impacts on the market. But it did not make sense to make a sequel to Metroid. Metroid wasn’t driving NES sales. So Metroid didn’t get a sequel. But it was such a unique experience, it found a single incarnation of itself on the Gameboy and then on the SNES.
I am not hating on 3d Mario. But I am curious as to why Nintendo is breaking their tradition of bringing franchises over to work on a sequel of a game that isn’t driving a console’s growth or the console’s unique selling points.