Super Mario bros

Nintendo celebrated the 30th birthday of Super Mario Bros. with the release of this excellent little video documenting the creation of that iconic game.

Shigeru Miyamoto explains his inspiration and process for how the lasting gem came into being.

Technically, Sept. 13 was the 30th anniversary, but who knows when that is relative to today, what with modern time zones and all. So, Google got into the spirit today with a nifty little Easter egg.

If you type "Super Mario Bros." into search, a question box will appear in the results and you can go ahead and collect all the coins you want.

Unfortunately, you do not receive an extra life if you click it 100 times.

Happy belated b-day Super Mario Bros. Thanks for introducing me to a life long habit of reality avoidance.

Nintendo will release Super Mario Maker Sept. 11 and the game includes a new power up for the red-overalled plumber. Unfortunately, it gives him the ability to look really deformed.

The game will have a Luigi Mushroom, which is meant to make the titular hero more like his green-sporting brother and not only in the taller and thinner appearance. The 'power up' will also make him jump higher and have less traction.

The Mario wiki tells the origin of the new mushroom:

According to Takashi Tezuka, the form came from a bug that happened in development that made Super Mario skinny. It looks similar to a normal Mushroom with a short cap and a very thin base. It is randomly found in Question Blocks, along with Super Mushrooms, but Luigi Mushrooms are rarer. A Super Mushroom can't overwrite the effect of this mushroom,.. but they can fuse together.

Yeah, but it also makes Mario look like a hunchbacked buffoon! A lanky, awkward creep who slinks his way oilily into the upper reaches of the stratosphere only to grab gobs more mustache wax off the highest gross shelf.

Watch the weirdo do things here:

We're not the only ones who think this. Kotaku expressed their disgust well.

Three dudes dressed as Mario, Luigi, and Wario briefly ran alongside cyclists in the Tour de France. Either that, or I haven't been paying attention and Mario Kart has taken a really strange turn.


(Reddit)

Go Weegee!

3D artist Aryok Pinera made this stunning recreation of everyone's favorite video game plumber in Unreal Engine 4.  Imagine if the next Nintendo console looked like this!





Previously in Unreal Engine 4... 

Nintendo announced the hire of Doug Bowser May 20 and were the first to acknowledge the name in a press release.

Nintendo of America has hired a new Vice President to lead the United States sales organization with a name that's well-known in the Mushroom Kingdom. Effective today, Doug Bowser (no relation to the King Koopa and Mario's longtime nemesis) will oversee a variety of sales-related functions, including Sales, In-store Merchandising, Retail Strategy and Retail Marketing. He will play a key role in driving national sales strategies to generate demand and achieve revenue objectives across all of Nintendo's product lines. Bowser also will manage Nintendo's key retail customer relationships and will oversee retail marketing for the Nintendo World store in New York.

Sure, he seems like a good fit now, but how long before he starts looking like this:

Official details about the golden Mario amiibo have finally been released!  The Super Mario amiibo—Gold Edition will be sold exclusively at 3,000 Walmart stores in the U.S. at a retail price of $12.96.  The gold amiibos launch with Mario Party 10 on March 20, 2015.  Also arriving on that day is a special new ‘wave’ Mario bundled with Mario Party 10.

Pre-order one here!