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.

Comments

No Surprise

[Psychor]

This comes as no surprise to me - I always feel like dancing after I have eaten hallucinagenic mushrooms.

I dunno...

[Trillian_1138]

I'm conflicted. On the one hand, this would seem to be a really dumb use of Mario. People already know what DDR is, and don't need a product tie-in to make the sale. In fact, if I was presented with two versions of DDR, one Mario-filled and one 'normal,' I'd go with the normal one.

That said, I'm really glad the GameCube is *finally* getting a version of DDR. For the most part I enjoy the games released on GameCube more than those released on PS2 or XBox. But one of the notable exceptions I wish GameCube had has been DDR, and it looks like this opens the door for future releases.

So, overall, I'm pleased with this announcmenet, because I've been wanting a GC DDR. At the same time, I wish they didn't have to make another Mario tie-in...

-Trillian

Good idea.

[MBCook]

I think this is a great idea. Mario could stand to lose some weight.

Of course, with all the exercise he gets (Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Mario Baseball, Mario Trout Fishing-xTreme), you think he'd be in better shape. Just what IS his diet anyway?

PS: I like Mario Golf, etc, but this just seems like they are renting Mario out for money. Why not just make Mario Basketball if you want him to play?

Re:Good idea.

[Gothic_Walrus]

Why not just make Mario Basketball if you want him to play?

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.

Re:Good idea.

[SetupWeasel]

PS: I like Mario Golf, etc, but this just seems like they are renting Mario out for money. Why not just make Mario Basketball if you want him to play?

This is how Nintendo is reaching out to third party developers. I think Nintendo is starting to understand that their game making prowess casts a shadow over other companies that want to make money on their system. So they are offering characters (NBA Street 3, DDR, and Soul Caliber) and entire franchises (Starfox to Namco, F-Zero to Sega) in order to share the spotlight and prove that they want others to profit making games on Nintendo consoles.

That's the way I see it anyway. Nintendo is in a precarious position. Because they are such a good game maker, they have to make some concessions to 3rd parties if they want others to develop for their systems.

Re:Eh... Not suprised.

[xenocide2]

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.

Re:DDR with Mario?

[byolinux]

Swing your arms, from side to side..

Hmmm...

[SunFan]

Do they feature the Princess shaking her booty in a latex mini-skirt?