Nintendo is the king of giving their fanbase everything they want, but usually with a catch. Fans were practically screaming from the rooftops that they wanted an online service. Nintendo answered with a $20/year subscription plan that gave players multiplayer access to select titles and a catalog of titles to play, but only NES titles. Then a year later, a selection of SNES titles came to the service, but not too many. Oh! Your favorite Wii U game is coming to the Switch?! But for $60. With the rumors–which have been backed by multiple reputable sites–that Nintendo is remastering many of the Super Mario titles including Super Mario 64, Sunshine, Galaxy, and 3D World wrapped up in one collection, there has to be a “but,” right?
I think there is absolutely no way that Nintendo will bundle all of these remasters into one collection. Despite what the rumors suggest, it is just not going to happen. I refuse to believe it. Take that thought and throw it in the trash right next to Mario Tennis Ultra Smash and Mario Party 10. I have a better chance of Reggie Fils-Aimé adopting me as his adult son. Think about all of the ports that have made their way to the Switch from the Wii U. Now think about how all of you suckers bought them again for full price. It’s ok, you can meet me at the Switch Port Buyers Anonymous Club; we are a welcoming community.
Nintendo is one of the only companies that has the guts to release 5-year-old games with minimal improvements for full price and get away with it. New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe is probably the best example of that. When the game was first announced and the price was revealed, I nearly took my laptop to the dumpster because it had to have been broken. If you believe that a remastered version of Super Mario Galaxy–arguably one of the greatest 3D platformers ever–isn’t going to be a standalone title priced at $60, then I want whatever you are smoking.
Hell, even if Galaxy wasn’t a great game (I got nauseous just typing that out) Nintendo would still get as much money as possible out of it. Mario is the flagship series for the company and every iteration is near the top of the sales charts for whatever console the game releases on. Super Mario 64 (albeit it was a launch title) is the bestselling N64 game of all time. Sunshine was the third bestselling GameCube title. Galaxy was the 9th bestselling Wii game, selling almost 13 million copies, and New Super Mario Bros Wii was the 4th best-selling title with a staggering 30.28 million copies sold. Even Super Mario 3D World sold almost 6 million copies and placed 2nd on the Wii U. If Mario is in the name, the game will sell on a Nintendo system.
As stated above, there is probably no better argument for this than the port of New Super Mario Bros U releasing for Switch with not much additional content for $60. Nintendo had to be crazy right? Who would buy a good but not great 5-year-old platformer in a series that everyone was tired of? (psshhh totally not me, am I right guys?) Well guess what; we bought it anyway, because it is the 9th best-selling Switch game right now.
On top of that, Nintendo has been in this business for a long time. Anyone out there who thinks that the company is naive enough to think that its consumers will not drop $60 on a remastered game is fooling themselves. Despite the cost, if these games are in separate packages, they will still be some of the best-selling games for the Switch this year.
What I could see as a possibility is Nintendo slowly dropping these remasters throughout the end of the year. Whenever the next Direct takes place, which will probably happen sometime around early June to line up with when E3 was supposed to take place, imagine that Nintendo officially announces all of these remasters with Super Mario 64 Remastered releasing that day or in the weeks to come for $60. Additionally, a release schedule is unveiled for the rest of the titles with Super Mario Sunshine releasing later in the summer, Galaxy (and hopefully Galaxy 2) releasing that fall, then 3D World coming later during the holidays.
It makes perfect sense to me. Yet, Nintendo seems to never take the path that just makes sense. The remasters do not even have to be the full $60 each. I am willing to bet most of us will buy all three titles and if they are each priced at $40, that’s still $120 all together.
The separation of the titles gives the company a slam dunk in sales in just about every other month of the second half of the year. The Mario franchise is always one of the bestsellers for Nintendo, and to have a full game release every other month wouldn’t even be a home run. It would be as if Doug Bowser smacked the ball through our atmosphere and through the moon. The game would just be over.
Though, I hope I am wrong. The speculative side of me just can’t deal with the possibility of a 3D Mario collection. It just sounds way too good to be true. Nintendo has a long history of nickel-and-dime-ing its consumers, whether that is charging customers for a Virtual Console title even though the game was purchased before, refusing to drop prices of their popular games for years, or charging full price for a port of a five to six-year-old game. Us Nintendo fans have been gouged over by the company we adore at least once before, if not more.
If the reports have turned out to be true and Mario 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy are bundled together, I will be happy to admit that I was wrong. It would be a move that would greatly benefit Switch owners financially and maybe put the stigma behind Nintendo a bit that they love to price gouge some of their products. Plus, all you jabronis out there who are still trucking on the Sunshine hate bandwagon finally get a chance to re-experience the game and possibly reflect on other bad opinions you have decided to take.
The post Nintendo’s Super Mario Collection is Too Good To Be True, Right? by Grant Huff appeared first on DualShockers.