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Nintendo says Super Mario Bros. Wonder soared due to multiplayer magic

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/nintendo-says-super-mario-bros-wonder-soared-due-to-multiplayer-magic

"Around half of the people who play this game do so in multiplayer mode."

I personally bought it because it looked like some innovation on the 2D Mario formula, which -to me- had become stale with New Super Mario Bros. The little I played multiplayer, I didn't find it particularly great, mostly when players have very different level of skill. I think this might be a case of “correlation does not imply causation.” But what do I know 🤷

What's a safe bet is -as the article says- the movie definitely helped boost sales, as it did with older titles like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

12 comments

TaintPuncher

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Personally, I always loved the classic, side-on Mario games and thought the new features of this looked fun, but the best feature was the fact Nabbit and Yoshi don’t take damage. My 4 year old is autistic and wants to play video games with me but struggles. This allowed us to get through the levels together and he was so happy ^_^ btw, they still die from falling, it still took a LOT of lives, haha.

I don’t know how many others bought it to play with their younger kids but it worked for me!

SuperSynthia

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This is why companies like Nintendo need to exist. Fun for the family is really awesome and I’m glad your son was able to share such a “wonder” of a game with you!

echo64

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"Around half of all people who played, played in multiplayer" kinda sounds like 25% of sales were multiplayer sales. Still not insignificant and more than I would have thought, but it would be foolish to extrapolate from that and make a mulitplayer only mario next.

It's nintendo that's almost exactly what they will do.

picandocodigo

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It’s nintendo that’s almost exactly what they will do

Absolutely 😅

chiisana

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Didn’t they already did Mario 99 or whatever and then sunset it because it wasn’t successful like Tetris 99?

4am

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Mario 35 was a special game that was only around for Mario’s 35th Anniversary. It was announced from the start as being a limited time only thing, it was actually very popular right up until it closed, just as Nintendo had always announced it would.

I still think they should have kept it around, but its removal was not unexpected.

brunox

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It was pretty successful while it lasted, it always had a sunset date :(

Pacmanlives

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I bought it to just be able to play with my partner. They are very new to gaming so it was a fun one. Meanwhile I have been playing games since the 2600.

All the New Super Mario Brother games never really captured me but this one really did

Eggyhead

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Yeah… multiplayer was actually not that good in this game. Camera was unforgiving, online was weird and felt detached and non-inclusive. I bought the game to play locally and online with family, but all of us lost interest by the time we hit some cloudy area. In contrast, I had a great time with that Mickey game and the Yoshi one from a few years back. Wonder’s multiplayer should really not be getting fluff pieces.

wer2

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I am glad other people had fun with the multiplayer, but I agree with you. Playing Wonder with my young kids was just painful, especially compared to Kirby, Yoshi, and some others.

I like the single player though.

brunox

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Personally I had some great and memorable experiences of collaboration in online multiplayer, and some forgettable experiences of just seeing the other players pass by and being meh about it like if they weren't there.

I definitely do not think the online multiplayer is a factor on the game success, I don't think it affected the game success at all. Just being a refreshing 2d Mario game, and the Mario Movie is enough.

I am not sure if the original quote of Shontaru Furukawa means online multiplayer or local multiplayer. The wording and context make me think of local multiplayer ("people can enjoy with family and friends during the year-end holiday season, when people get together"), but the half of the people playing multiplayer make me think of online multiplayer. The context of the interview (a Q&A by the end of fiscal year, for investors) make me think Furukawa is being vague on this on purpose.

discostjohn

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I fully agree with your assessment. The game had a great trailer, a groovy vibe, and was right on the back of the Mario movie. It would have been almost exactly as successful with the classic turn-taking multiplayer experience.

It was cool to be able to play with friends and see the ghosts of randos, but it was a minor novelty, not a major selling point.

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