TITLE
How Nintendo Convinced The World To Buy A Weird Mario Game
AUTHOR
Jon Irwin
PUBLICATION
Kotaku
YEAR
2014
ARTICLE TYPE
Book Excerpt
FROM THE ARTICLE
In the summer of 1988, Nintendo Power #1 arrived on doorsteps across the country. Its own cover announced the impending arrival of something new, something we needed: There was another Super Mario Bros. game coming. All at once, thousands of souls opened this glossy magazine, the same shape as their parents’ issues of Time or The Economist, and found what they were looking for.Games hadn’t yet been broadcast in the same pervasive way as other culture. TV ads were fleeting, an occasional shot fired. This magazine, sent out en masse, to be sifted through for thirty days until the next one arrived, was a cluster bomb, a family-friendly blast of nougat-napalm draped over your front stoop. That first issue would eventually be sent to more than 3.2 million homes for free, the highest circulation of any issue for the publication’s 24-year history. Soon, Super Mario Bros. 2 was everywhere, even if nobody knew a thing about it.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Nintendo
GAMES MENTIONED
Super Mario Bros. 2
PLATFORMS MENTIONED
Nintendo Entertainment System [NES]
EXCERPTED FROM
Boss Fight Books – Super Mario Bros. 2
SEE ALSO
New Book on Super Mario Bros. 2, the “Black Sheep” of the Mario Bros. Franchise – Geek Dad (2014)