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Mario to Shake His Groove Thing
After the news earlier this week that Mario would be shooting hoops in NBA Street, I decided that Nintendo had reached the end of its tie-in rope with Mario. I was wrong. The newest Dance Dance Revolution title for the Gamecube will be called Dance Dance Revolution with Mario. From the article: "As the title suggests, Dance Dance Revolution with Mario is a new installment in Konami's DDR dancing game series, featuring characters from the Mushroom Kingdom. Details on the game haven't been disclosed yet, but from the released images, DDR with Mario seems to play similarly to DDR, with familiar backdrops featured in the 3D installments of the Super Mario series." Ow.
Besides...did the presence of Disney characters hurt the PS1 game DDR: Disney Mix? It may mean different backgrounds and songs, to be sure, but the game itself doesn't change.
If the presence of Mario means we get a Cube version of DDR, I'm all for it.
Goo goo g'joob.
That would require a significant investment of time and money for Nintendo. If they can get a company like EA to agree to use the characters (and possibly pay for the privilege) in an established series, that's worlds better than developing a basketball game of their own.
Beyond that, if Nintendo really is losing the console race so badly (though I doubt they're doing as badly as has been reported here), they need all the help they can get. If that means licensing out characters to increase sales of GC versions of games, so be it.
It seems a bit odd that Nintendo is doing this after all of these years (how long has it been since the CD-i debacle?)...but if it's what it takes to keep them around for the next generation of consoles, I'm all for it.
Goo goo g'joob.
Well, hey why not? As long as the product is high quality, its not like its eroding the brand. There was an article not too long about about how Nintendo was branding everything in sight, rather than developing new franchises. I used to be a bit miffed over how they put his face everywhere, but really, how many franchises does Nintendo need? They've got a big enough cast that they can actually make a fighting game out of it with 30 characters from like 10 franchises (star fox, metroid, zelda, kirby, pokemon, mario, fire emblem, f zero, earthbound, donkey kong...). Really, some of those franchises don't do as well as the best, so its natural to help trim the bottom line with some extra income from Mario to help offset the less than stellar F Zero GX sales (still an awesome game and a better buy daily).
Yes, people will buy it because of Mario. Will it be a crappy game because of Mario? Will Mario be crappy because he's in the game? My answers are no and no. Really, whats going on is Nintendo is trying to attract games over to their system, and they're using their own new "seal of approval" to do it. Nintendo gets a popular game on their dominated console (sadly), the game makers get a dose of more sales, and cube owners get more games.
Mario, by and large, will always be judged by the flagship games that bear his name, rather than the one offs with his face on it.
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Seriously, I look at this as a corrolary to the article posted yesterday. And I think Woody says it best: this is nothing but shameless franchise whoring.
Not every game has to be innovative. It's DDR for a platform that had no DDR game before. It's still a good game. Kids (and others) will get a kick out of the inclusion of familiar and loved characters.
Nintendo's happy, Konami's happy, gamers are happy.
If the game does not appeal to you, it's a pretty good clue you're not the intended audience. Go back to playing manhunt - that's bound to make the world a happier place.
...mainly because I really don't like most of the DDR music (I mean, I KINDA do, but not really, and I bet a lot of people feel similarly), but if I get to dance to the Mario music, I'd bet I could probably really get into it. Which would you rather dance to? Drop the Bomb? Its a Small World After All? Or the Mario theme?