Super Mario Bros. 3 sells another million copies 20 years later
Not too shabby for a 384 kilobyte game, wouldn’t you say?
The information comes by way of download and mobile tracking firm FADE (Forecasting and Analysing Digital Entertainment), who released their annual report detailing the top WiiWare and Virtual Console sales and trends late yesterday evening. The report is particularly unique (and also quite handy) due to the current dearth of information on download sales figures across the interactive industry.
Topping the digital charts in North America for 2009 is 1990’s Super Mario Bros. 3, which managed to net Nintendo another $5M in pure profit last year (the game sells for 500 Nintendo Points, equivalent to $5.00). Following closely behind was 2D Boy’s excellent WiiWare release, World of Goo, which added another $4.8M to its coffers in 2009.
To put this accomplishment in perspective, New Super Mario Bros. Wii tallied 1.4M units in 2009, making it the year’s 10th best-selling game in North America (this, despite being released in the middle of November). Super Mario Bros. 3 – with its 1M paid downloads across the year – would almost certainly have found a seat at the top-20 table, if not the top-15.*
The claim would still stand even if one were to include the digital content of competing online storefronts, such as Xbox Live Arcade, whose top-seller for the year was EA’s Battlefield 1943 – a game which saw an estimated 830,000 downloads in 2009, making its volume still less than good ol’ Mario 3.
Stare at these numbers long enough and the mind starts to ponder: is this a sad reflection of an industry in creative peril (which already relies heavily upon sequel after sequel; remake after remake; year after year) or is it that Mario just knows how to sell the goods?
Many in the video game industry would be very quick to justify with the latter and move along, giving it not one second of extra thought. However that would be foolish; to say that a game sells just because of a character, and to bitch and moan when their product fails to do the same, is terribly naïve.
Brands can and do die. Witness one Sonic T. Hedgehog. Once a celebrity of the 16-bit era, he is now the Lindsay Lohan of the gamespace – popping up every now and again to remind us that he’s alive and didn’t O.D. on amphetamines, though no one really cares.
Mario’s greater lesson is that complex games aren’t always to the benefit of the player (and the market, which he controls). Instead, we find that 100 GB doesn’t always hold something as special and creative as 3 megabits used to.
*NPD Group releases annual data only on the top-10 best-selling games per year. Anything below this threshold can only be considered speculation.
Images Courtesy of Wikipedia and Level Select
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Mario 3’s continued success might indicated a dearth of creativity in the industry, or it could just be that the casual gamer prefers the simple, pure, entertainment of the old 2D left-to-right gameplay.
Super Mario for Wii (which I am close to completing, with every gold coin, still without having gotten a game over) was as refreshing a return to the old ways as a Nick-at-Nite Growing Pains marathon.
I wouldn’t even use the word “casual” to define its audience Mr. Graham, Super Mario Wii is just plain good no matter how you like your games served up.
And while that is quite the (almost) accomplishment, the question remains – have you discovered how to play without his hat?
In response to another comment. See in context »Yes, well…here’s the thing. Pricing makes all the difference. I’d love to see how many units of Super Mario Bros. 3 would sell if the game were priced competitively with modern titles. That is to say, comparing SMB3 with, say, M.A.G. or Wii Sports is comparing apples to oranges. The Virtual Console content is in a market all it’s own and thrives of it’s own accord, independant of the whims of the mainstream market. Reading anything further into that equation is likely wishful thinking from a nostalgia soaked crowd, of whom I am joyously a part of.
I agree that pricing makes a world of difference -
Though interesting to note, many other games on the Virtual Console service are priced at $5.00 and the only download that came close to SMB3 in volume was the original SMB, with an estimated 660,000 sold (which is also quite impressive!)
But to say the Virtual Console (and I assume all other online storefronts – I’m thinking that’s what you meant) doesn’t represent the mainstream market, that’s a hard claim to gauge.
Part of Nintendo’s audience are these born again gamers that have been seduced back into the fold. As their numbers rise – should they be kept entertained – they could very well become quite “mainstream.”
It will be really interesting to see how things play out when digital distribution channels overtake traditional retail outlets, and pricing gets even more hazy. We might soon be comparing 20-year old NES games with modern day blockbusters in an all-out sales battle royale.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Steam. For example, 2D Boy’s World of Goo, created by a three man team for around $10,000, earned $4.8 million on Wiiware in the last year alone. That figure doesn’t include the amount the title earned from [...]