Mario Galaxy, Wii details predicted in '91 by modern day Nostradamus

60 Comments by James Ransom-Wiley Jul 28th 2006 1:00PM
Filed under: Culture, Nintendo Wii

The December 1991 issue of Nintendo Power was recently unearthed, revealing eerie similarities between lil' Jimmy Peterford's "ultimate game system" fantasy and Nintendo's forthcoming Wii. As it turns out, Peterford nailed the Super Mario Galaxy name and likely came within a few dollars of the actual Wii launch price with the $259.95 figure he offered up. But the connection between Peterford's seemingly innocent wish and Wii doesn't end there...

Digg commenter, EvolvedAnt, draws these additional parallels:

Peterford's prediction: "My fantasy game system would be a complex 512-bit system."
Wii: "...comes with 512 MB built-in flash memory."

Peterford: "It could display 27,876,992 colors at one time..."
Wii: "...can display 16.7 million colors."

Peterford: "...could play any game from any video game system that ever was..."
Wii: "Virtual Console."

Peterford: "There would be a miniature band inside that knew how to play any song!"
Wii: "Nintendo E3 2006 press conference started with a [virtual] band playing music that plays based off of the Wiimote." ['Wii Orchestra' tech demo]

Peterford: "You could even buy your own special chip that would allow you to make your own games for it!"
Wii: "Quote from http://wii.nintendo.com/hardware.html: 'It also will be home to new games conceived by indie developers whose creativity is larger than their budgets.'"

Peterford: "The system would come with six 27-button controllers..."
Wii: "If you count every button on the Wiimote, as well as Nunchuk, and include each axis of sensitivity for rotation, x, y, z as well as lateral movement sensitivity, as a separate method of input, you get a number very close to 27 if not on the dot."

Okay, so some of those parallels are a stretch, but heck, Nostradamus wasn't all that accurate either. Of course, the other explanation is that Nintendo stole the Wii concept from some kid out of Glen Cove, New York nearly 15 years ago. Alas, we'll never know...

[via Digg]

Tags: Nintendo Power, NintendoPower, Super Mario Galaxy, SuperMarioGalaxy

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

AlloyNES: Jul 28th 2006; 1:04PM

In the latest Nintendo Power magazine (that has Rayman on the front), there's a letter in the players pulse section where a fan brings this to NP's notice. NP responds by saying. "Now that's creepy..."

HotShotX: Jul 28th 2006; 1:11PM

Hey may be even closer: There have been 120 games in which Mario has been in to date.

Super Mario Bros. 24 x 5 Consoles (NES, SNES, N64, GC, Wii) = 120!

OH SNAP!

~HotShotX

Loque: Jul 28th 2006; 1:11PM

Somebody send that kid a Wii

Cameron: Jul 28th 2006; 1:23PM

Weird. Especially the title for Mario. This person should get a free Wii. Only thing, though, there is no confirmed price for Wii.

brandon: Jul 28th 2006; 1:23PM

If you look at it in a certain light, Galaxy is the 24th mario related game (leaving out the Mario sports games, Kart racing, Party etc):
1 Donkey Kong
2 Mario Brothers
3 Super Mario 1
4 Super Mario 2 (j) - "Lost Levels"
5 Super Mario 2 (US)
6 Super Mario 3
7 Super Mario World
8 Super Mario World 2
9 Mario Clash (virtual boy)
10 Super Mario Land
11 SM Land 2
12 SM Land 3
13 Super Mario 64
14 Super Mario Sunshine
15 New Super Mario Brothers
Those are the straight forward ones, these are more of a stretch - justification being that they feature the trademark gameplay to some extent, along with the central characters:
16 Super Mario RPG
17 Mario + Luigi Superstar Saga
18 Mario + Luigi Partners in Time
19 Luigi's Mansion
20 Super Princess Peach
21 Paper Mario 64
22 Paper Mario TYD
23 forthcoming Paper Mario
24 SUPER MARIO GALAXY

Ethan: Jul 28th 2006; 1:24PM

well, if he sent it in back in 91, he would be 15 years older now, so I doubt he is still a kid, a kid trapped in a mans body, maybe, but not a kid.

minus_273: Jul 28th 2006; 1:25PM

kid? you guys do realize that this "kid" is probably like the rest of us and in his 20s today. Look at the date folks, 1991. I wouldnt be surprised if a bunch of joqstiq readers saying "kid" werent even born at the time.

Eric: Jul 28th 2006; 1:27PM

Wow, He should be a philosopher or something. Someone contact him and ask him how the world will end.

jc: Jul 28th 2006; 1:27PM

He even had a better name for the system.

The Mole: Jul 28th 2006; 1:29PM

It's like infinite monkeys theory, only with gamers.

Ff you have an infinite number of gamers writing into an infinite number of game magazines eventually they'll predict the Wii(and every other console for that matter).

Actually, Ken Kutaragi does this a lot too. For example, he predicited that I'd be able to jack into the matrix with the PS2 and I totally did. Sure, Enter The Matrix was mediocre, he was right! Then he said games would be live in 4-d! Sure enough I go home and play Xbox Live games in 4-D!!!! Game predicitioning is so much fun!

ck: Jul 28th 2006; 1:30PM

27 Buttons? Is that kid crazy? Does he have four hands? I mean, honestly, what kind of gargantuan controller was he dreaming of? I like the idea of having 6 controllers, though. I'm sure this kid is working in Nintendo's R&D department, fo' sho.

Amos: Jul 28th 2006; 1:34PM

Buy that kid a wii? Screw that, somebody buy that kid a lawyer!

DrJack: Jul 28th 2006; 1:39PM

That is insane. Then to top it off he wants a tiny band that can play any music he wants in his console. Now not sure if the Wii can play MP3's but he more or less predicted the Xbox (and more so 360s) use of custom soundtracks.

I agree he deserves a free Wii. Someone should start a petition to be sent to Nintendo... give the guy a free Wii get a crapload of interesting advertising.

dvddesign: Jul 28th 2006; 1:42PM

I liked the kid next to that. He wanted a "Bill and Ted's Time Traveling..." Don't date yourself kid!

Ubersnuber: Jul 28th 2006; 1:44PM

lol, the "raw power system" is even worse, my grandmother has Conan's power if you compare to the Wii xDD

the rest wasnt bad though:P

Comtar: Jul 28th 2006; 1:49PM

Does someone have this guys number? I need to know the launch date of Duke Nukem Forever.

that guy: Jul 28th 2006; 1:53PM

Okay, funniest post I think I've ever read here - #7 (JC). Give that man two more stars for that one alone!

Tucker: Jul 28th 2006; 2:04PM

When I was 7 years old, I drew a picture of a 'pencil phone' that more or less predicted the Motorola RAZR. Does that mean I get a gold star too for inventing cell phones? Give me a break.

Come to think of it, I mailed a copy to AT&T, maybe I should be like everyone in the electronics industry and sue them for IP infringement.

32_Footsteps: Jul 28th 2006; 2:06PM

Actually, I'm curious what the bit-count of the Wii will be. I think the current generation were all 256-bit machines... the Wii might actually be a 512-bit machine.

As for the numbering of the game in question... I think it's only Super Mario Bros. 9, but who even keeps track of that anymore?

Also in terms of the virtual band... funny, I just got done playing Daigasso! Band Brothers with a friend. And while there's a 120-measure limit, I can put together nearly any song I want within that limit.

Babylonian: Jul 28th 2006; 2:13PM

Get to work, Internet Detectives! Jimmy Peterford of Glen Cove, NY must know what he has done.

djork: Jul 28th 2006; 2:15PM

@32_Footsteps

The Wii will be a 64-bit machine if it's running on a modern PPC chip. The same goes for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Paul P.: Jul 28th 2006; 2:20PM

When I was a kid I loved Mega Man 2 and would spend a lot of time after school drawing up designs for Mega Man 3. It's absolutely crazy but my first design was a Magnet Man, and I drew that there should be Magnets flying at the beginning of the stage that would pick Mega Man up since he was made of metal. When Mega Man 3 actually came out, I was floored. Capcom has the power to tap into children's imaginations, I believed.

billychaos: Jul 28th 2006; 2:23PM

OK this is really cool! but I have a question for someone out there... If you count all the SMB sequals, and include all the rpg, sports, dance, party mario games...Is the number 24???? or around it?

Jake Parker: Jul 28th 2006; 2:28PM

The number of "bits" in a cpu is rather irrelavent. 32 is fine. 512 is just silly. The main reason for uping the "bits" is to up the memory ceiling, which on 32bit machines is 4Gb (?)

64bit is something in the theoretical range of 16exa-bytes or something. More than we'll need for this generation.

The main reason you get people going "ooooo 64 bits!" is because AMD used the oppurtunity to add extra registers and call the spec x86_64. x86 sorely lacks registers, so the actual speed boosts are not because of the "64 bits"

None of the consoles are 256bit footsteps because that would be silly, pointless, and well just stupid. PS3 and xbox have the G5 (power4) architecture at their core, and that's why they are 64bit. I wouldn't be surprised if the wii is 32, since the gecko was. Either way, it will not make a difference because the Wii won't have more than 4GB of ram, and "bit count" is the most pointless benchmark ever past 16bits.

A: Jul 28th 2006; 2:33PM

creepy- but what's creepier is I remember reading that letter way back in 91.

give that kid (prob not a kid anymore) a wii for being an awesome piece of nostolgia trivia, if not for his foresight.

SupaDave: Jul 28th 2006; 2:36PM

-------------
2. Hey may be even closer: There have been 120 games in which Mario has been in to date.

Super Mario Bros. 24 x 5 Consoles (NES, SNES, N64, GC, Wii) = 120!

OH SNAP!

~HotShotX
------------

A bit of a stretch because I would say there is technically 6 consoles, counting the Virtual Boy. It maybe have run on AA batteries (or AC) but it is definately not portable.

But... this whole article is a stretch outside of the kid naming Super Mario Galaxy.

Paul P.: Jul 28th 2006; 2:38PM

We know that now, Jake, but back in 1991, the only measurement of power consumers knew was 'bits'. Atari was 4 bits, NES was 8 bits, SNES and Genesis were 16 bits. The more bits, the more power! BITS BITS BITS! We were just kids and teenagers, most of us didn't even have computers yet, and no one knew a damn thing about computer architecture.

Jeff: Jul 28th 2006; 2:39PM

"None of the consoles are 256bit footsteps because that would be silly, pointless, and well just stupid."

Measuring bits in itself is pretty silly, but over the past decade or so, manufacturers have always used the bittage of the GPU, not the CPU, when quoting these numbers for game consoles. So yes, the current systems probably are all "256 bit"; they're mostly using the same 256 bit parts as in your current PC graphics card.

I don't know if there is such a thing as a 512 bit graphics part, but maybe there is and maybe one or more of the next-gen systems is using it.

But there is a reason why people basically stopped advertising these numbers, because they've grown increasingly meaningless over the years.

Pheonix Gamma: Jul 28th 2006; 2:41PM

Ok, here's the story. This guy comes from the future, writes this article about the Wii and SMG, letting us know of the greatest game of his time.

But see, by doing that, he's royally screwed up the timeline. Because of his mere presence and because of the information he shared, he indirectly caused Nintendo's dethroneing by Sony.

On the bright side, this means that time travel isn't too far ahead...

Z-247: Jul 28th 2006; 2:47PM

You guys left off the best part: Later on the same page, another kid talks about wanting a game machine that can milk cows and cover the rest of his morning chores. The editor answers "There wouldn't be much of a market for cow-milking, breakfast cooking, dishwashing video game."

Apperantly the makers of Cooking Mama were listening to this letters page as well.

cringer8: Jul 28th 2006; 2:52PM

(Technically, the Colecovision was a 32 bit system.)

As for naming "Super Mario Galaxy," it would only seem natural to someone playing "Super Mario WORLD" at the time that a GALAXY would be coming eventually.

Let me put my neck on the line and predict a "Super Mario Universe."

Maybe in fifteen years, people will be saying "give that kid a free Nintendo Dixnyf.

robert semp: Jul 28th 2006; 2:54PM

i want the cow milking wii thats much cooler

Jay: Jul 28th 2006; 2:57PM

That is creepy, btw I came up with the name Super Smash Bros Brawl like 4 years ago.

Tucker: Jul 28th 2006; 2:59PM

Wouldn't the cow-milking game just be a male version of the Rez Trance Vibrator peripheral?

Daniel M.: Jul 28th 2006; 3:04PM

cringer8: are you always so negative? or is it just you online persona?

although i must admit, I LOLed a little @ the nintendo Dixnyf bit.

David: Jul 28th 2006; 3:18PM

Who is to say that when little Jimmy wrote it that he was even little at all...he could have been like 20 something in 1991...

Someone assumed that he is about 20 now...which would put him at 5 when that issue of NP was published. How many 5 year olds know about complex 512 bit systems...or even care about a system that "could display 27,876,992 colors at one time..." When i was five, i was happy to have 3 colors let alone 27,876,992...

My guess: today little Jimmy is a 40 something computer engineer reveling in the joy of his soon to be fantasy system...as we all are...

Maximilian Lockwood: Jul 28th 2006; 3:34PM

Even if Nostradamus predicted the Wii (much less the September 11 attacks), I doubt he wouldn't get 10 stars for his post (much less 13! I'm lookin at you 17th comment...)

32_Footsteps 13 stars

Oh man... I wanna play with my Wii as much as Tucker wants to milk his cow via the male Trance Vibrator.

Manbrator?
Milkinator?

Oh, and if anybody at Nintendo steals those names in an upcoming Wii cow-milking game, I want a cut.

James: Jul 28th 2006; 3:45PM

And can someone tell me why is this newsworthy?

Don't waste people's time with throwaway articles like this. No one cares.

Madalive8: Jul 28th 2006; 3:54PM

i bet hes running around his neighborhood screaming "i told you so!"

Some Show: Jul 28th 2006; 3:56PM

WOW!

He knew about the Virtual Console!

He knew about the name of the new mario game!

He even knew about orchestra game!

hmmmmmm

MrTroy: Jul 28th 2006; 4:06PM

James... 37 people cared... that's enough isn't it?

Grant: Jul 28th 2006; 4:12PM

Yeah #35, the 34 commentors before you didn't care at all. They certainly didn't care enough to go to the trouble to comment about it, anyway.

BillBix: Jul 28th 2006; 5:13PM

As a kid I had similar thoughts to what an awesome system would be like, and they were just like wii. I don't know anybody who has played a game with swords and wished you could really swing the controller like a sword.
We all had the Wii on mind in one time or another. I think that's why everybody is both building up hyper and excitment for the system and at the same time dreading that it's gonna fail.

This kid just happened to get it published is all, but you all know you have been dreaming of the Wii since you started gaming.

32_footsteps: Jul 28th 2006; 5:54PM

You know, especially after seeing the rapid response correcting me on the bit issue, I just knew someone would take a shot at the whole stars thing. All I can say is that some people at Joystiq thought I was clever/insightful/funny 15 times in the past.

Yes, 15. If you could see my specific star history, I received 15 positives and 2 negatives. Proving that yes, even the most loved commenters can cheese off the bloggers.

Also interesting to note - following the link, note the other boxed off area. Insert jokes about The Sims or Harvest Moon here.

the_game_master: Jul 28th 2006; 6:34PM

#27, in the past game hardware manfactures did go by the bit of the CPU. There were no GPU that done video processing, it was all done by the CPU.

The last system to have a CPU doing the video processing was the 128-bit PlayStation 2, since then every game system has had a off hand GPU processing the video, and either a 32-bit or 64-bit CPU, i.e. Gamecube and Xbox.

cringer8: Jul 28th 2006; 6:36PM

@Daniel
"cringer8: are you always so negative? or is it just you online persona?"

1) I'm not *always* negative, just most of the time.
2) I don't have the energy to have duo personae.
3) I like making lists.
4) Every good list should end at number four.

n_revolution9: Jul 28th 2006; 7:02PM

30) LMAO!!! Nintendo Dixnyf!!!! lololol

Komris: Jul 28th 2006; 8:13PM

Super Mario 24.
WiiConnect24 anyone?

milkman1042: Jul 28th 2006; 8:58PM

You know, with the accelerometer in the control stick (Nunchuk) attachment it wouldn't be too hard to make a milking game. Just shake the joy stick up and down.
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You guys have dirty, dirty minds. >:-|