Any time mascot characters from different game companies converge, it's a big deal. As mascot-converging deals go, it doesn't get much bigger than Itadaki Street DS, which forcefully jams the worlds of Dragon Quest and Mario together onto a game board. There's also the fact that another long-time Square Enix franchise heading to the DS is likely to cause a sales supernova. We enjoy keeping tabs on this game in anticipation of that upcoming cosmic event.
As if those weekly hardware charts weren't enough to convince you, Next Generation has put up a report that once again underlines just how well the DS Lite is performing in Japan. The words "ridiculous", "ludicrous" and "criminal" certainly spring to mind when noting that the Lite sold 575,000 units last month, making for a grand total of 2.6 million thus far.
Not content with conquering Japan and America, the newly revamped, newly released, New Super Mario Bros. now set its non-insidious sights on Europe, land of collosseums, queens and curiously leaning constructions. Nintendo of Europe has announced that the game has shipped to stores, just in time to be snatched up over the weekend. Expect Mario to hit his presumed homeland of Italy in full force, devouring mushrooms and smashing bricks, though sadly not fixing leaky plumping. If you haven't purchased the game already, check out its updated official site and catch yourself whistling along to the music.
Nintendo's most recent press release exhibits the interesting quality of simultaneously telling us something we already knew and something we didn't. The first part should be fairly obvious if you boast any familiarity with portly Italian plumbers: New Super Mario Bros. for the DS is a huge success in North America -- certainly nothing worthy of a collective gasp. Selling over 500,000 copies since its May release, the shell-smashing, block-bashing retro platforming trip has practically given Nintendo permission to nonchalantly reach into your pocket, feel around for a few seconds and make off with your wallet.
According to the NPD group's thorough and unusually keen sales analysis, Mario's latest block-bashing, Koopa-kicking, shell-sliding adventure was the bestselling game in the US for the merry month of May. Following closely on the portly plumber's hopping heels was Brain Age, nestled snugly in third place. It seems that New Super Mario Bros. was just the thing to wean gamers off that nasty heroine addiction.
Giving his competitors a veritable butt-stomp, Mario finds himself at the very top of the Japanese software sales chart this week -- nearly 900,000 people donned their rose-colored glasses and marched out of a store with a copy of the portly plumber's retro adventure.
It's easy when you're big in Japan. Nintendo recently announced at a Japanese retailer meeting that New Super Mario Bros. sold through over 900,000 copies in its first 4 days of availability. Not a huge surprise, but another indicator that even Nintendo benefits from everything old being new again.
1up has posted a preview of Mario's latest return to block-busting, mushroom-mashing, princess-procuring platforming and the qualities observed are quite promising. Everything old is new again. Perhaps unsurprisingly, New Super Mario Bros. still plays and feels exactly the way you'd want and expect it to, even despite the addition of Mario Kart's nefarious blue shell and a mushroom that unleashes Mariozilla upon an unsuspecting world.
In a statement issued today, Nintendo have confirmed that Mario's triumphant return to smashing bricks with his head and chasing after mushrooms in New Super Mario Bros. is poised to help usher in the North American launch of the DS Lite, perhaps to a degree that few gamers were expecting. New Super Mario Bros. will only be compatible with the DS Lite and will not work with the original machine. Nintendo's name-taking, posterior-assaulting marketing guru, Reggie Fills-Aimes, explained that players would be able to see why this decision was made.
Which is a bit ridiculous, really. Sometimes "ridiculous" works, however, and we can't see any problem with using that term when it comes to a portly plumber crushing sentient mushrooms, blasting fireballs from his palms and disappearing down mysterious pipes. Jeux France now reports (via the latest issue of Nintendo Power) that Mario's forthcoming return to the world of platforming (after a brief hiatus in the land of sports) will feature no less than 80 levels, as well as a return of all the mini-games from Super Mario 64 DS. Given how long it took us to get over that Pair-a-Gone addiction last time, this could potentially be viewed as bad news.
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