| pokoko said: Because Mario was bundled with the NES. That resulted in massive exposure. Back then, for most kids, quality games were few and far between. Yeah, some rich kids always had a ton of games, but most people only owned a handful. Mario became the default game that EVERYONE played. That didn't just mean exposure, either, it meant that Mario came to define the taste in gaming for many, many people. It was the first game for many, and the most played game for many. The result was kind of predictable. It's not even like the first Mario games were even that great, in my opinion. I barely played my copy, mostly because of a local rental store and because I had a friend who had a bunch of games. I found tons of stuff I liked better, from Ghosts n' Goblins to Nobunga's Ambition, so Mario never settled in with me as a main component of gaming. I've been saying for a long time that if any of the Big Three wanted to grow a new IP to massive proportions, they should bundle it with EVERY console, standard. It might mean less short-term profits but it would pay off long-term. Of course, it wouldn't ever reach the same magnitude because of all the options in gaming now, unlike when the NES was the only game in town, but it would help. I will always believe that Mario would never have come close to its current popularity had it not been a pack-in. It's kind of a shame, as I would much, much rather that Kirby had been given the role of Nintendo mascot. |
The character of Mario was already popular in arcades; Donkey Kong and then Donkey Kong Jr (where he first actually became 'Mario'), and then the very popular arcade game "Mario Bros".
The Famicom launched in Japan two years before SMB even released, and of the three launch bundles here in the States only one of them came bundled with SMB. It wasn't until three years later that SMB came with pretty much every NES console.
The truth is that SMB was a high-quality title, plain and simple; it was a paradigm shift for video games upon its launch (for both home and arcades), so I steadfastly disagree that Mario can solely thank being bundled with the NES for his success as history's most popular game mascot - it was because he was the star of a massively entertaining game. In fact, that was the reason it was bundled so heavily later on. Since then, Mario and his cast of characters have been at the forefront of many of Nintendo's pioneering ideas such as Kart racing and 3D platforming, so you could say that many new ideas owe their success to Mario just as much as the reverse.
I can respect the fact that you don't like SMB, as that's your opinion, but the fact that you prefer Ghosts 'n Goblins (particularly the NES version) to SMB shows me that our opinions differ tremendously.
