More images of this custom Mario paint job here. No word yet on whether US automakers will begin to offer this as selection for their cars.

This 2D Mario cameo can be found in the newest trailer for Rare’s Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts for the Xbox360. The trailer goes on to show the duo blow up Mario via their new flying machine’s missiles. I don’t know whether this is a tribute or slap to Nintendo’s plumber. I doubt we’ll see this in the final game though. Check out the trailer to view Mario’s death.

Note: I’ve never really had a desire to purchase a console outside the “Nintendo realm” until I saw Banjo Kazooie’s latest adventure. Looks like my Wii will have to make some shelf space come this fall.

Tough day at the office? Boss on your back? Being overwhelmed by Goombas? Just need a break? Simply hit the button on the back of this Super Mario Bros. Singing Invincibility Star and sit back. You’ll be protected from harm as the Singing Star plays the Invincibility Theme from Super Mario Bros. and you become an office hero.

The Singing Star goes for $18 at ThinkGeek.

A Harvest Moon Wii tractor pull? A real-life F-Zero supersonic racing circuit at the Bonneville Salt Flats? Mario juicing for his upcoming Super Mario Sluggers baseball promotion?

Nintendo will hold a pretty cool marketing promotion in NYC tomorrow as a man dressed as Mario hails cabs for Manhattanites, free of charge. What follows are just a few of the wild new Nintendo marketing promotion ideas I would like to see the Big N implement for some of their other first party games in 2008.

See what I mean after the jump and add one of your own.

(more…)

Since I moved to Japan I’ve begun to notice various instances of copyright infringement in ads, store windows, and various products. The convenient store near my job uses a poorly drawn “colonel” to advertise their chicken and the barber shop down the street has Mickey Mouse in the window for no reason. There just isn’t as tight a hold on improper intellectual property usage here, and so you will often see Mario used as the logo for video game stores that opened around the big Famicom boom in the 80’s.

This game-shop in a Nakano shopping arcade took the trend a step further and copped the plumber’s name for their store “Big Mario (ma-ri-o is written in Katakana).” Nice! Even though the shop sells more than just Nintendo-goods, the name harkens back to when “playing Nintendo,” or even “playing Mario,” could mean gaming of any kind. Ahh the memories.

Game Daily takes a look at the stars of Mario Kart and tries to assign real life vehicles to each character.

What’s Italian, fast and looks great in red? Mario in a Ferrari. Mario is the most successful video game character of all time, and he deserves to drive the best sports car out there. Just as the Mario series is named after Mario, the Ferrari Enzo is named after Enzo Ferrari, founder of Ferrari. Both names carry a lot of weight and are practically synonymous with their respective fields. You think of Mario when you think about video games, and you think about Ferraris when you think about sports cars.

Head on over to see the rest of their list.

[Thanks, Seth!]

http://view.break.com/487616 - Watch more free videos

The ol’ “too much time on your hands” versus “wow, that’s pretty intense” debate rears its ugly head again with this clip of an RC car playing the Mario theme on wine bottles.

[Gizmodo via Boing Boing Break]

Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo’s newly crowned Vice President of Sales and Marketing, yesterday announced Mario Super Sluggers, a Wii sequel to the successful 2005 GameCube title, Mario Superstar Baseball.

Any person qualified enough to take Reggie’s old job demands respect. Her words, dripping with delicious truth, ought not be disputed:

“We think (Mario Super Sluggers) is going to take these three wonderful areas of Mario, baseball and the unique capabilities of the Wii remote and bring them together in an exciting experience.”

Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, or maybe I’m referring to the precedent set by Mario’s countless successful sports endeavors prior, but what about this game doesn’t seem awesome so far?

(more…)

The ongoing excitement over Nintendo’s groundbreaking Wii system gets a surprise springtime boost with the announcement of a new game. Kicking off its semiannual media summit in San Francisco near the company’s new sales and marketing offices in Redwood City, California, Nintendo of America today revealed plans for Mario Super Sluggers for Wii, giving baseball fans even more reason to root this season.

“Mario is truly a one-of-a-king character; clearly fans can’t get enough of him and his friends,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. “We’re giving Wii users brilliant new ways to enjoy him while expanding our series of active-play games.”

(more…)

Now that we’ve had some time to digest his latest adventure, the Infendo offices have been buzzing with debate. It spilled over into last week’s edition of Infendo Radio and has since been the subject of countless e-mails from listeners, readers and tipsters all week long:

Which Mario games stand the test of time? Which are the cream?

We’ve set some parameters for debate, and the qualifying criteria for a “Mario game” were fairly rigid during the development of this list. We avoided including entries from the countless Mario spin-off franchises, such as Mario Kart and Mario Party, with one obvious and deserving exception. We are referring to proper Mario platformers.

After all, this is serious business. Place your bets, friends.

(more…)

I know what you’re saying. “All of Mario’s power-ups are necessary and awesome, and there’s no way you could possibly whittle away such goodness to come up with a top 10 Mario power-ups list.”

To which I would reply nay, you are incorrect — there are certainly many, many useless and easily forgettable power-ups, and truly there are ten amazing ones that deserve a list.

That list, my friends, is as follows — from least amazing to most amazing: (more…)

Reader JoeyJo sends word this morning that some perfectly of legal drinking age college students at the IT University of Copenhagen had a Mario themed night at the Scrollbar, drinks and all! Who’s for a field trip to Denmark?

Initial idea by Christoffer “Chairman” Holmgård Pedersen. Drink recipes by Mike Khamphokeo, Douglas Wilson, Martin Colith, Martin Woo. Decorations and stencils by Benedikte Mikkelsen (and Julie and Camilla). Poster by Robin Di Capua and Guo Yu Pan. Photos by Guo Yu Pan.

Scott (or Mr Johnson as we call him) from the Infendo Radio podcast shows us that his daughter is as artistically inclined as he is.  Easter eggs adorned with Mario and Luigi’s traditional logos are to be found on his site and Flickr.  Happy Easter!

Taken at Millennium Bridge, London for “The Largest Gathering of Games Characters” event which was to be included into Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition. 80 people showed up to participate including Sonic, Lara Croft, Gordon Freeman, and others. Though they didn’t break the record, it looks like they had some fun. Hit the link to check out more pics.

Link

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games for Wii and DS has sold a combined five million copies to date, but that success doesn’t necessarily mean another collaboration between Nintendo and Sega developers is a sure thing.

“Getting Mario and Sonic together in the first place took so long, every decade, to make that happen,” Sega of America COO and president Simon Jeffery said in a phone interview with Next Generation. “So I think rushing into any other collaboration is not going to happen. It’s going to be fairly calculated.”

Launched on November 6, the game was published by Sega in the West and Nintendo in Japan. Throughout it all, the watchful eye of Shigeru Miyamoto was allegedly ever present.

Personally, I was hoping that a game that finally united two of the 1990’s most iconic video game rivals would have been something, I dunno, different than a game centered around the Olympics. With all this success, however, is it too much for a guy to ask that the next one, should it be made, be Mario and Sonic No Holds Barred Cage Deathmatch?