Email: The pimping of Super Mario Brothers

This is, as far as I can tell, the number of times Super Mario Bros.
has been released for consumers to buy.

Super Mario Bros. (NES) – There are also other pack-in cartridges that
have this game along with Duck Hunt and possibly also World Class
Track Meet (depending on when you bought your NES), but I only count
this as one since it’s likely you’d have only one copy of this game.

Super Mario All-Stars (SNES) – One of the games included. There’s also
a later version that includes Super Mario World, but it was only
included with new SNES systems so I only count this as one too. Many
have mixed feelings, but I like the changes to the SNES version of SMB
and think the collection as a whole is great, especially the
enhancements done to SMB2.

Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (Game Boy Color) – Notable for being the last
time Nintendo put any effort into porting / remaking this game. It’s a
bit different due to having to compensate for the GBC’s smaller
screen, but I still had a lot of fun playing it. The fact that it also
has a (sadly gimped) version of The Lost Levels as well, and a
Challenge Mode and other goodies made the game well worth it.

Classic NES Series: Super Mario Bros. (Game Boy Advance) – This is
actually a severe downgrade considering how well done the GBC port
was. It’s just the NES version (badly) emulated.

Super Mario Bros. (Wii Virtual Console) – Again, just the NES version
emulated but better than it was on the GBA.

Super Mario All-Stars: 25th Anniversary Edition (Wii) – Take SMAS and
emulate it on a Wii disc and charge $30. That’s about it.

Super Mario Bros. (3DS Virtual Console) – See the Wii VC example above.

So, assuming you bought the game just *once* for each system (I
consider the Wii VC and SMAS Wii disc to be two separate systems),
you’ll have bought the same game seven different times.

Indeed. How many times do we have to buy this game?

And the good question is that with someone buying Super Mario Brothers over and over and over again, that is money leaving the market that could have been used to buy OTHER games. This is why an account system or turning our Wii Virtual Console games into that account system does Nintendo more business. You sell more games when we don’t have to buy the old ones over and over and over again.