Check out this interview with Yoshiaki Koizumi.  One of the minds behind Miyamoto’s most beloved franchises.  He has directed Sunshine and Galaxy.

Worth a read:  Interview with Yoshiaki Koizumi

I saw this one back when I posted the link to the No More Heroes article, but I figured it would be better to save it for another day:

Understanding The Fun of Super Mario Galaxy

Voice chat/Virtual Console

• Reggie talked about how Nintendo is still considering voicechat, and how he wouldn’t be surprised to see it on Wii in the future.
• Both expect it to happen (when Nintendo say stuff like this, it basically means it is happening) but are dumbfounded by how long it is taking.
• Both really hope it comes out in time for Smash, but are doubtful.
• For the majority of VC games, we’re not going to see modifications or upgrades (like we did with Pokemon Snap), simply because Nintendo doesn’t need to do it.
• Don’t expect a VC price drop in the future - they’re doing great and there’s no need to change anything.
• Hope to see more import games (like Sin and Punishment) and expect this because it appears that Nintendo is paying attention to the wider gaming community.

NPD

• Both Wii and DS did exceptionally well.
• Numbers don’t include some retailers such as Walmart, so the numbers are even larger.
• Analysts are predicting around 1.6-1.7 million for Wii in December.
• Make sure you camp out if you want to get a Wii - don’t go on ebay or anything because you will be ripped off.
• If the quantity had been there, Wii sales would have definitely been over 1 million. Nintendo would be kicking themselves right now because of their inability to get more units out.
• Very solid performance by 360 (not too far away from Wii) and PSP, as well as Playstation 2. Playstation 3 numbers are still comparatively low, but much improved from last month.
• Galaxy released a week later than COD4, so both games are basically selling at the same pace - if Galaxy came out earlier, then it would probably have reached around the same numbers as COD4.
• Guitar Hero 3 Wii should be a 1 million seller by the end of the year, which should do very good things for future Wii 3rd party support and also proves that 3rd party games can sell very well if they are high quality and appeal to the Wii audience. EA should be kicking themselves for not releasing Rock Band on Wii.
• Bozon thinks it’s taken way too long for the mono issue in Guitar Hero 3 Wii to be fixed. Action needs to be taken.

Wii Software LTD’s:

• Super Mario Galaxy = 1.2 million
• Smackdown vs Raw 2008 = 53,000 - not very good first-month numbers, and comparatively lower to PS2 and 360.
• Carnival Games = 300,000 - has sold better than Nintendo’s Big Brain Academy.
• Boogie = 172,000
• Call of Duty 3 = 310,000
• Cars = 115, 000
• Cooking Mama = 190,000
• DDR Hottest Party = 176,000
• Dragon Ball Z Buokai Tenkaichi 2 = 166,000
• Elebits = 130,000
• Excite Truck = 266,000
• Fire Emblem = 53,000
• High School Musical = 185,000
• GT Pro Series = 108,000
• Guitar Hero 3 Wii = 715,000
• Happy Feet = 87,000
• Harry Potter = 150,000
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess = 1.8 million
• Madden 08 = 292,000
• Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games = 330,000
• Mario Party 8 = 1.4 million
• Medal of Honor Heroes 2 = 31,000
• Metroid Prime 3 Corruption = 490,000
• MySims = 200,000
• Wii Play = over 3 million
• Rayman Raving Rabbids = over 500,000
• Rayman Ravings Rabbids 2 = 60,000
• Red Steel = less than 400,000
• Resident Evil 4 = over 400,000
• Resident Evil : Umbrella Chronicles = 120,000
• Sonic and the Secret Rings = 350,000
• SSX Blur = 125,000
• Super Paper Mario = 808,000
• The BIGS = nearly 200,000
• MLB Power Pro = around 80,000
• Tiger Woods 07 = almost 350,000
• Tiger Woods 08 = 175,000
• Transformers = 150,000
• Trauma Centre = 210,000
• Trauma Centre: New Blood = 15,000
• WarioWare: Smooth Moves = 604,000
• Zack and Wiki = under 35,000

- Bozon thinks that the great sales of Resident Evil on Wii should lead to an original Resident Evil game on Wii, likely in the vein of Resident Evil 4.
- It seems that casual and minigame titles on Wii are selling best, with a few exceptions.

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 ***WARNING: This video does contain spoilers.***

This video is a pretty cool collection of neat things you’ll find in Mario Galaxy. If you ever have any free time with Galaxy, something the author obviously had too much of, then you should try some of these out.

Discuss this video on our forums.

As you all know, Mario Galaxy has been one the Wii’s most anticipated titles. After the somewhat ill-received Super Mario Sunshine released, many were still left with that void in their hearts that needed to be filled with classic Mario platforming, something that was rare in Sunshine. Now that Mario Galaxy has released, we can all take joy in knowing that Mario is back and better than ever.

The game starts out at a nighttime festival around the beautifully rendered Peach’s castle. You gain control of Mario and walk around the festival enjoying the beautiful atmosphere, that is, until Bowser rides in on his airship and rips Peach’s castle and its foundation off of the groud and blasts off with it into space. Mario, being the hero he is, tries to save Peach and jumps onto the castle’s foundation before it is ripped off. This doesn’t work too well as Mario is knocked into space by one of Bowser’s baddies. That is where the adventure really begins.

Gameplay:

Mario Galaxy is a classic 3-D Mario game at heart, but with a new twist, you  are in outer space. The outer space theme is very welcome as it offers gameplay that has never been done before while keeping the classic Mario platforming. On your
quest to save the Princess, you will be adventuring through outer space on small planets, big planets, and sometimes by drifting through space using the Wiimote pointer as your guide. Another element that really makes exploring the game’s 40+ galaxies a lot of fun is the return of Mario’s suits, which really add to the variety of gameplay. The development team did a great job at creating unique levels and challenges for Mario to use his 7 new suits on.

There are some interesting ways to use the Wiimote in Galaxy, all which work perfectly.

The most important gameplay factor though is the fun factor of the game. I am glad to say that this is the most fun game I have played in a long time. Never have I seen such an amazingly beautiful, yet amazingly fun, platformer. The game completely draws you in and doesn’t let go. Controlling Mario is a blast, and seeing Mario soaring across the sky after firing off a sling star for the first time is one of those great gaming moments that you’ll never forget.

10/10 

Controls:

If there ever was a perfect control scheme for the platforming genre, this would be it. It controls exactly how you would expect Mario to control. The two new additions to the controls is the ability to do a mid-air spin by shaking the Wiimote or Nunchuk, and the ability to pick up star bits by pointing the Wiimote at them. Both of these actions feel surprisingly good to perform, and they really do add to gameplay.

Mario uses some of his new moves while fighting bosses.

If I had to choose something to complain about though, it would be the camera. Even though the camera usually keeps everything you need to see in perfect view, there are times when you need to adjust the camera yourself. This wouldn’t be an
annoyance, but the thing is, you can’t always control the camera. There are a few times when you want to turn to see something, but the game won’t let you. This tiny control issue doesn’t really hurt the game overall, but it does become bothersome at times.

9.5/10

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Super Mario Galaxyis officially one week old today and has sold a total of 500,000 copies in the US, making Galaxy the “strongest” one week debut game for the Wii and strongest first week selling Mario game ever, even beating out Metroid Prime 3 of 400k sales for it’s first week.

This figure is doubled that of Japan’s which initial weak 1st day launch has managed to sell 250k on its first week. Still no word on Europe’s figures until the end of the week. These sales figure combined is still starkingly smaller than Microsoft Halo 3’s figures which sold 1.7 million before it was even launched.

So what does this say about Nintendo’s Italian mascot of the past 3 decades? Nothing really. It just means that not every Wii owner is going to run out and buy Super Mario Galaxy the way every 360 owner did with Halo 3. And Nintendo’s habit of releasing games at different dates around the world also throws off any serious sales tallying and hype. Nonetheless, Galaxy is still successful anyway you look at it.

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