Nintendo marks Super Mario Bros. 35th anniversary

Nintendo is celebrating the original release of Super Mario Bros. in 1985, on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in America and Famicom in Japan, with a plethora of products this holiday season. Most notably a limited edition Game & Watch (affiliate link), which was the first Nintendo handheld system I owned.

There'll be video game tie-ins with Animal Crossing, Splatoon and Super Smash Bros. Super Mario 3D All-Stars, bundling Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury and much more on the Nintendo Switch.

This 35th anniversary celebration is exciting news for Super Mario fans (myself included) but not without controversy. Mario is arguably the most recognisable video game character of all time and Nintendo's IP the most valuable.

However, critics have opined that Super Mario 3D All-Stars isn't a remaster a la Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection for PlayStation and are questioning the decision to leave Super Mario Galaxy 2 out of the must-have collection. Is Nintendo planning free DLC or a standalone release later? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

I'm looking forward to replaying Super Mario 64, for the first time since owning the game-changing 3D title for the Nintendo 64 (N64) in the late nineties, and playing Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy for the first time ever.

There's also Nintendo's confounding decision to make this a time-limited release. During a global pandemic, this could be viewed as anti-consumer when so many people are struggling day-to-day and a cynical way to bolster earnings during the fiscal year ending March 2021.

As friends and industry pundits have pointed out, Super Mario 3D All-Stars is a system seller and Nintendo Switch has an enviable library of first-party titles that eclipses Sony and Microsoft's machines. These titles are rarely discounted and sell year-after-year.

That said. Nintendo has me with all the nostalgic feels since the halcyon days of Donkey Kong on Atari VCS and therein lies part of the problem. As someone who passed on the Wii U, I've picked up all the ports released so far and Pikmin 3 Deluxe will be next.

Will you be getting Super Mario 3D All-Stars? Let me know in the comments below.

Wii Speak

December sees the launch of Nintendo's Wii Speak peripheral, which coincides with the release of Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City!

Wii Speak is a microphone accessory for Nintendo's Wii video game console. Connected to the console via USB, the device can be placed near the video display, allowing voice chat to be conducted with the entire room. The device features an LED to indicate when the microphone is active.

According to Miyamoto, the microphone is designed to "clearly capture many different voices being spoken in a room at the same time and convey that over the Internet." Addressing concerns over background noise due to the placement of the microphone near a television set, Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City producer Katsuya Eguchi states that the device is designed to filter out video game sound from the audio speakers. Miyamoto notes that the quality of the noise filtering functionality in the Wii Speak is "very good", which may be contributing to the cost of the device. In an IGN product interview, the microphone was rated excellent.

You can purchase Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City with Wii Speak!