Unfortunately for Tim, the content on this page was [for lack of a more eloquent/nicer way of saying this] completely ignored.

Sorry man. Sometimes the best way to learn a lesson is the hard way. Sadly, serious losses were suffered in this case. My heart goes out to you, your family, and your poor HDTV.

Update: I’m going to use the same rule that Uncle Floyd has to follow…

I grew up with Pac Mac, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Castle Wolfenstein, and Super Mario Bros. 3. I believe these are some of the best games of all time. Maybe they’re great because I grew up playing them; maybe they’re great because they have excellent gameplay and story lines. Or maybe they’re great just because you don’t see new games like this anymore. Sure, graphics and audio have improved significantly, but I think that has also negatively impacted the complexity of many new games.

It is entirely possible to sit down and play a game like Pac Mac for 15-30 minutes at a time and be completely satisfied to play a few lives, and then walk away. The same applies to Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, and a whole other slew of games from the 80s. Super Mario Bros. 3 requires you to spend a bit more time playing, but it was still possible to beat the entire game in an afternoon. These games are simple. There is little doubt as to where Mario needs to go to save the Princess. He always moves left to right while avoiding bad guys, and always finds the exit after walking and jumping around a while.

You can’t get lost, you don’t have to find the hidden star(s), and you don’t have to beat the same level more than once. In fact, you can’t beat the same level more than once until you beat the game and start over.

Let’s compare Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) to Mario 3 (Nintendo Entertainment System).
WARNING: If you have any intentions of playing this game, there will be spoilers during the next paragraph.

BEGIN Spoiler

There are essentially six different ways to beat Mario Galaxy:
1) After retrieving 60 stars, travel to the Center of the Universe with Mario, defeat Bowser, save the Princess.
2) After retrieving 120 stars, travel to the Center of the Universe with Mario, defeat Bowser, save the Princess. This is exactly the same as #1 except you have collected all the possible stars in the game (or so you think).
3) After retrieving 120 stars and saving the Princess, repeat #1 with Luigi. That’s right, you get a new character and the same exact game to beat again.
4) After retrieving 120 stars with Luigi, travel to the Center of the Universe with Luigi, defeat Bowser, save the Princess.
5) (I’m not actually here yet, but this is what I’ve heard): After performing #2 and #4, a new galaxy will appear. Beat the new galaxy with Mario.
6) Repeat #5 with Luigi.

END Spoiler

How to beat Super Mario Bros. 3
1) Play completely through levels 1-8, defeat Bowser, save the Princess.
2) Play through levels 1 and 2, warp to level 8, defeat Bowser, save the Princess.

It could also be argued that finishing either #1 or #2 that the game has in fact been beaten since the only way to continue is to completely start over. I’m one of those people. You can do that in a couple of hours on a rainy Saturday afternoon. To complete #1 and #2 for Mario Galaxy it has taken me multiple hours for multiple weeks (at this point I neglect stating the actual number of hours). Let’s just say that if you beat Mario Galaxy on a Saturday afternoon you’re probably lying or you don’t have a girlfriend/wife/significant other. Galaxy also requires you to play the same level more than once to find multiple stars, although the level may have changed slightly.

I miss the simplicity of these old school games. Nintendo has made available, for download directly to the Wii, old games from the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, N64, Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx, and Neo Geo. Maybe it’s the nostalgic feel of playing these, or maybe people actually still enjoy playing these games. Either way, people are re-buying games they owned when they were kids.

I don’t know if kids would enjoy a game like Donkey Kong today, because you sure can’t buy it for any of the newer systems on the market. Another problem is the fact that people don’t want to pay $50 for simplicity. I’ll agree with that one…I could have bought Mario 3 for $50 back in 1990, why would I want to pay $50 for something similar to it in 2008? This is another reason I applaud the Wii Virtual Console, these games are as low as $5.

Some of the new complexity is irritating to me. Take another example from Super Mario Galaxy: Mario runs around in a 3D world, just like in the last two versions of Mario World games from Nintendo. A 3D world provides a dynamic camera angle that changes depending on which direction Mario is facing, and depending on whether or not objects disrupt the line of site of the current camera and Mario. This may sound great, and sometimes it is. But what is not great is when the camera angle changes when you’re not expecting it to. This has caused me on numerous occasions to bump into enemies, or to walk right off the edge of a platform to Mario’s death. Poor Mario. There is no option of fixed camera position, which makes numerous areas in the game more difficult than they need to be.

I believe that the phrase ‘less is more’ would fit well here. Now let’s drop the price of these new video games and give me something simple to play with.

Super Mario Bros. 3:

Best

Game

Ever

The slogan reminds me about a scene from Forrest Gump when Forrest was in his “running stage” when he helps that hippie come up with a new bumper sticker slogan. Come on, I know you remember it:

Hippie: “Hey, man, hey, listen. I was wondering if you might help me, huh? Listen, I’m in the bumper sticker business and I’ve been trying to think up a good slogan. And since you have been such a big inspiration to the people around here, I thought you might be able to help me jump into… Whoa! Man, you just ran through a big pile of dog shit!”
Forrest: “It happens.”
Hippie: “What, shit?”
Forrest: “Sometimes.”

From here I suppose I could transition into how great a movie Forrest Gump is, or how great an actor Tom Hanks is and question how he gets involved in some really crappy movies (Cast Away, just awful. The Terminal, thoroughly disappointed). I could also tell the story about the summer when my sister, brother, and I all got into a huge Tetris tournament with the old school Gameboy…which then led my mom to force me into getting a job.

I think I might spin off the second topic and talk about the Wii.

Since purchasing a Wii and playing it for hours at a time, I can honestly say that I have missed playing video games since the introduction of the Nintendo 64 (circa 1996). Yes, that is correct: the last video game system that I purchase was the Nintendo 64. You may wonder why I didn’t get a GameCube, or a PS2, or an Xbox. Well, if I had to pick a single factor, it would have to be price. Holy crap have you looked at the price for the high end PS3 these days? $500 for the system, one controller, and a crappy game. The price of these gaming systems was beginning to get out of control, and thus I began to focus on collecting/buying the older games like Super Mario Bros. I remember buying the original Gameboy in 1990 for $90. Looking back, that was probably a large amount for a portable gaming system…but come on, the screen was shades of, err, green? The Gameboy at least came with Tetris, a game that could keep you busy for hours trying to get over that 100-line milestone.

Then there was the Super Nintendo that I bought some time after that…for $119.99 I remember it came with two controllers, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, and for $4.99 shipping and handling, it also came with Super Mario All-Stars [which contained Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, & 3 and the Lost Levels]. That thing was sweet and to this day, Super Mario World is still one of my favorite games of all time.

At some point after that people in the video game market decided they weren’t making enough/could make more by selling all of these required components separately instead of packaging the required stuff together so that the gamer could simply buy the system, take it home, and play without having to shell out additional coin. Ick. Then the N64 purchase:
System: $150
2nd controller: $25
Game: $50

Yikes, already up to $225.

[Click the ‘Live’ button on the DVR remote]

Playstation 3: $400/$500
Xbox 360: $350
Wii: $250

Now I know we have to take into account inflation, and the rising cost off all the required parts to assemble the video game console, and the advancement of the technology inside the boxes, but holy cow…500 bucks is a lot of money, not to mention the other crap you need to buy!

So what am I getting at here? Well, now I’m a sucker and have bought back into the video game world. Even though I now have the cheapest system available, you can be assured that plenty of birthday and Christmas money have been spent on accessories. Maybe I should have just stuck with Tetris.

Now that’s getting ridiculous.

So what’s the deal anyways? Why the short supply? First of all, were you able to predict this incredible demand this Christmas? I sure had no idea, and I’m pretty sure Nintendo didn’t either. Abi pointed out to this article to me that was originally published in the Wall Street Journal. It discusses Nintendo as a company and why there aren’t any Wii’s this year. I’ll let you read the article for yourself, but one of the main reasons is that they are a rather conservative company when they set their earnings forecasts. In the past two years they have met the forecasts in just nine months.

It kinda comes down to the “dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t” scenario, where if Nintendo floods the market with the systems and then they don’t sell, the retailers get pissed because no one wants them and they have to lower the prices, and then Nintendo loses money, and blah blah blah, dust off your copy of Economics for Dummies if you don’t get it. However, the consumers are happy with this scenario because they can walk into Best Buy, pick up a Wii, and take it home to play right away. With things as they are now, Nintendo is happy because they can keep their inventory low and keep that cash flow flowin’. I’m not sure how the retailers feel about people camping outside of their stores and waiting in line before the doors open..and I know that consumers are pissed because they can’t buy a damn Wii for a reasonable price.

Sometimes this is just the way things go.

But anyways, I always find it interesting to see what the craze of the holiday season will be each year…it looks like the Wii wins two years in a row. Does anyone remember the days of Furbies, Beanie Babies and Tickle Me Elmo?