Super Mario 128

Super Mario 128
Developer(s)	Nintendo EAD
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Series	Super Mario
Platform(s)	GameCube and Wii
Genre(s)	Adventure Platform
Mode(s)	Unknown

Super Mario 128 is a name given to a series of development projects that were originally to be used only to create a sequel to Super Mario 64. What was displayed in the Super Mario 128 demo shown at Nintendo's Space World trade show was the rapid generation techniques that were later incorporated into titles such as Pikmin, and "sphere walking" technology used in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy. Other aspects include physics technology later incorporated into Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime.

History

Origins

The name Super Mario 128 was first coined by Shigeru Miyamoto during an interview for Nintendo Power as early as January 1997, as a possible name for a Super Mario 64 sequel:

Mario 128 was not referred to again until the SpaceWorld event in August 2000, when Nintendo showed off a technology demo titled Mario 128 to display the power behind their upcoming GameCube game system.. In the demo, a large 2D Mario split off into 128 smaller Marios across a kind of circular board. The demo went on to display the technical power of the Gamecube by rendering additional Marios at once, until the number of characters on the screen reached 128. The terrain in the demo was manipulated, rotated, and spun to show off the various physics abilities of the system. (Interestingly enough, an Event Match on the GameCube's Super Smash Bros Melee is titled Super Mario 128, where you must defeat 128 small Mario characters falling from the sky.)

One year later at SpaceWorld 2001, Super Mario Sunshine was fully unveiled as the next Mario game; it was released in July 2002 in Japan, and a month later in North America. It was very similar to Super Mario 64, and not the "different" game Miyamoto had spoken of before. Many people believed Mario 128 turned out to be Mario Sunshine, and discussion of Mario 128 had subsided. In an interview after E³ with Computer and Video Games, Miyamoto confirmed that Mario 128 and Mario Sunshine had been separate games.

In the case of Mario, obviously we were doing work on the Mario 128 demo that we were showing at SpaceWorld, and separately we were doing work on experiments that we made into Mario Sunshine.

— Miyamoto,

Mario 128 Resurfaces

On December 10, 2002, IGN reported that according to an interview in Japan's Weekly Playboy magazine Miyamoto had mentioned—and confirmed—the continuing development of Mario 128.

Rumors later surfaced that Nintendo did not show Mario 128 at E3 2003 because the game was very innovative, and Nintendo did not want other developers stealing the ideas from the game.. However, Miyamoto later confirmed in an interview with Nintendo Official Magazine UK that Mario 128 was still in development and that the development team had planned to take Mario in a new direction..

In 2003, Nintendo's George Harrison stated in an interview with CNN Money that Mario 128 may not appear on GameCube at all.

It was thought that Nintendo would unveil the title at E3 2004. Miyamoto once again confirmed the existence of Mario 128 in another interview during February 2004, but the game failed to surface. Some believed this was due to the announcements of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and the Nintendo DS, both revealed at the 2004 show. GameSpy asked Miyamoto about the game after E³:

GameSpy: What is going on with Mario 128? Miyamoto: It's moving along secretly like a submarine under the water. When developing, we often look at the different hardware and run different experiments on it and try out different ideas. There have been a number of different experiment ideas that we have been running on the GameCube. There are some that we have run on DS, and there are other ideas, too. At this point I just don't know if we will see that game on one system or another. It is still hard for me to make that decision. I am the only director on that game right now. I have the programmers making different experiments, and when I see the results, we will make the final decision.

— 

IGN later in the year got a similar response. Miyamoto again asserted Mario 128's experimental nature.

In 2005, at the GDC, Nintendo's VP of Marketing, Reggie Fils-Aime, stated that Mario 128 would be shown at E3 2005. This was the point where most people thought that the game would finally surface.

However, for the third year in a row, the game once again failed to surface during E³. During a GameSpot video interview at E3, Reggie Fils-Aime stated: "I can only show what Mr. Miyamoto gives me to show." When a reporter asked if it exists, he responded: "I've seen bits and pieces."

In an interview with Miyamoto that year, a Wired News reporter confirmed that Super Mario 128 would not be produced for Nintendo GameCube, but rather that it had been definitively moved to the Wii (then code-named Revolution).:

In September 2005, Shigeru Miyamoto gave his least ambiguous comments regarding Super Mario 128. Questioned as to the status of the game by a Japanese radio station, he revealed that Mario would have a new character by his side and reiterated that the game would appear on the Wii with a different name. Interestingly, he also mentioned that Super Mario 128 played a large role in the conception of the Wii (then known as Revolution), like Super Mario 64 did for the Nintendo 64. He went as far to say that the Wii was based around "this new type of game". It was later confirmed, however, that Super Mario Galaxy (the first Super Mario platform title for the Wii) was not Super Mario 128 when Miyamoto stated at E3 2007 that Super Mario Galaxy was "created by the team that made Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, and development began as soon as that title was finished," (2005) while Super Mario 128 has been in development since at least 2000, when the technology demo was first shown.

Final Word

During the GDC 2007, Miyamoto mentioned that Super Mario 128 was merely a demonstration to illustrate the power of the GameCube. He also stated that most of the elements of Mario 128 were incorporated into Pikmin, in that the player controlled a large number of characters on screen. Other elements such as walking on 3D spheres are seen in Super Mario Galaxy.

The whole existence and reasons behind Super Mario 128 still remain much of a mystery even up till today, especially to Nintendo fans. Even though the game has in fact turned out to be a test, some still regard Super Mario 128 as the "game that never was".

External links

• Super Mario 128 Demo on YouTube