New Super Mario Bros. Wii, future titles will play themselves

Is this seriously what we've come to? Is America so helpless that they can't even attempt to beat something which is not real? We can't take of our problems in the real world, so doing the same in the virtual world makes sense... This is possibly the worst idea for video games I have ever heard of... No scratch that... This is the worst idea I have ever heard of EVER. I have been a Nintendo fanboy since the beginning. The Wii deal me a serious blow, as there are very few quality games on it. The childish quality to it really turned me off, and this may throw me off their sinking boat right here. I'm sorry Nintendo. You saved gaming back in the 80's, but if you keep pulling s*** like it, you might kill it. Congratulations on making worse decisions than most 10 year olds would make.

I do agree that if you are over the age of 12 and you are using the "demo play" it is pretty lame. However, I know my 3 year old would love it.

how ironic, all the effort of making games, and to have it play itself. not that there's much effort from nintendo these days.

i can see it clearly now, this is where the vitality sensor comes in. as long as you have a pulse, the game will finish itself. from newborn to clinically braindead people can get into the FUN!! how else can you convert everyone, even animals, into gamers. no point in converting dead people into gamers right? dead people can't give nintendo money, BRILLIANT strategy nintendo!!

They stole this technology from SEGA, Sonic '06 anyone?

"You did it!
An e-mail has been sent to confirm your e-mail address, as well as a password for you to use if you comment regularly. Click on the link within the e-mail to activate your comment and password!"

WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN WHEN I TYPE OUT A FREAKING ESSAY POST!

I'm posting as a returning member, so why does it still do this?

I'm for it. Better to have this as an option than to get stuck and give up on a game. Beats getting off the couch to check a guide.

Has it occurred to some of you that if you search for walkthroughs and tips for a game with this feature it would likely include tips from/might actually be the game using this feature? So what is the big difference between this and walkthroughs?Also it is inevitable that sometimes players may have problems with a game,it is their choice whether they would either tough it out or use walkthroughs/tips.This is merely one more option for those players.If the including of this feature with a title would all of a sudden magically detract from your experience of the game ( it might affect reviews,a dumb reviewer could just use this feature and then say since the game was easy give it a reduced score) you're not thinking straight about it.Hope this woudn't be in the metroid prime trilogy later this year though...THE PRIME TRILOGY WAS,IS,AND SHOULD REMAIN STRICTLY HARDCORE...especially prime 2...fight those bosses like a man!!!!

If games can get you unstuck themselves now, then what the hell do I have a big brother for?!

Breaking News: this just in apparently now you can be even more than you was before! don't feel like putting effort into playing a game? now you don't have to ;-) this new revolutionary new game play's itself. Just sit back & watch....

The gaming industry has just taken 5 extra steps closer to damnation. What the hell is the point in playing a video game if you're just going to skip the parts that are too hard for you to conquer yourself? It kills the replay value of the game and takes away from the experience as a whole. Are we really that lazy as a species that we've gotten to the point where even our recreational activities have to have some sort of automatic feature built in? I weep for mankind.

My only gasping hope in this sad story is what another user already pointed out: Games as a whole might get more challenging and the demo feature will help newbs not be alienated.

I really hope Nintendo does a better job on Super Mario Bros Wii than what they did with New Super Mario Bros on the DS. New Super Mario Bros on the DS was too easy (even grabbing all the coins was a joke), had no replay value and the fireflower was end all be all of power ups.

This is just another example of how Nintendo is moving away from being a gaming company. They started the move with Wii Play and pushed it even further (to far aparently for the market) with Wii Music. What they are moving towards is to become a Toy Company because once you remove the competition and the difficulty it's not a game it's a toy. This is their poragative and I hope with the failure fo Wii Music they get that Gaming needs to be part of their future to. The other M is a step but if the next Zelda Game has this Demo Feature i think that will be the last nail in the coffin for nintendo with the "core" crowd.

What is nintendo doing?! Baisicly when I was 5 I used to play games easily that usually are 12+, now looking at it, a kid that is 5 doesn't know how to play sonic games even though they have seen people play in front of them and know the controls, Right now im 15 so 10 years ago I used to easily play and beat sonic games, even at that age I completed pokemon games, at the age of 6 I played FFVII and just picked up and played with no tutorials or anything. Same with driver (I was 4/5 then) and driver 2, then PS2 was ou, I was good at RF2 and GTA3. Looking at this generation they do not know much, I mean a 9 year old who hasnt played a pokemon game struggles with it, even when I was 5 I never knew how to play it but it felt like pick up and play, at 6 I bought my own copy of Pokemon yellow (My first handheld game, pkmn red was my bros), and completed it easily. Even metroid I played and understood how to play with as little help I needed.

10 years have passed and this new generation of 5-10s do not know how to play, a 5 year old cannot read simple text, people thought that games would damage minds but they dont kno how to play. The point Im making is that well children have become more realient on help now and just aren't understanding anything yet, the demo thing might help them but they will rely on it too much, and actually not enjoy the full enjoyment of gaming, they weill need challenges to face and learn.

Having this thing on a simple game like SMB is baisicly showing that even the simple games the younger generation struggle at but this was not a problem 10 or so years ago

Post 1:
I think that I don't want to use this feature.
KILL IT. KILL IT. KILL IT. NINTENDO SUXX LOL IM HARDCORE.
Oh, and people these days are getting dumber, and back in my day we were willing to spend 5 hours on a single part of a video game. Because we were smart like that.

Post 2: This is a great excuse for Nintendo to get back to making advanced/difficult games. Now that they've solved the problem of allowing the casual gamer to play more advanced games, they can get them to BUY these games and therefore they will be MAKING these games.

Post 3:
Alright, here's what we all have to do: not use this feature. Then, the people that DO use the feature have either no integrity, suck at games, or are "casual" (like, they buy a Wii for Wii Fit) and decide to buy Super Mario Galaxy 2 and have no idea what the hell they're doing.

This is a good thing. My wife was really excited about The New Super Mario Bros. for the DS when it came out, but stopped playing after she couldn't get past the "bouncy mushroom" level. If she could have "demo played" through it, she wouldn't have lost interest in the game.

These features aren't for "gamers" they're for casual users who don't feel the need to play a level 30 times until they are good enough to beat it. They are the people that don't have mad skillz and did not grow up playing games but still want to get through a game to the end (even if they need crutches to do it).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhHu8D2oPic

This was a good idea when it was a rumor, it's a good idea now.

It's optional and the win doesn't "count" for score or achievements or whatever. It's little more than a built-in video strategy guide.

Not everyone conflates "needlessly frustrating" with "challenging." NES/Gen era gamers do, because we had no choice: Sussing out poorly-designed games to get to the end through process of elimination was the only way we could win half the time. This is why the Angry Nintendo Nerd's stuff hits so close to home for us - we remember having to FORCE ourselves through a terrible game because, well... what were we gonna do, get our parents to spend ANOTHER 50 bucks?

Hell, it's likely that this could encourage games to become MORE difficult, since it removes "so hard very few people can get to the end" from the list of viable criticism.

I predict this will be a success and other developers will follow suit (just like they did for motion-control.) I could see this being a standard feature of a majority of games by the next generation... in which case, the buried-lead here is that Shigeru Miyamoto may have just KILLED the strategy-guide industry. The heads of Prima are probably looking at this like buggy-whip conglomerates looking at Henry Ford.

I don't understand why people are so worked up about something that's optional. Is it an ego thing? You don't want somebody that used the feature to be able to say they beat the game? What if they added something to differentiate between those that beat the game using the feature and those that didn't? Would that help with your e-peen erectile dysfunction? You could be a big man because you beat the game without using the optional feature and everyone else could have fun playing video games. Win win.

@Slaziman:
I have to agree with you there. The typical game (i.e. Halo and Half-Life) does in fact have a smooth curve. However, there are some exceptions. For one, what some people would call easy is hard and vice verse. Let's say that two different people play a Zelda game individually. One is good with puzzles, while the other is good in combat. Shouldn't the game compensate for a lack of skill in another area? Also take into consideration RPG's. A person might be able to deal with as many random battles as the game throws at him, but still stumble on the boss battles. A casual gamer would give up after a while and maybe not try again against a larger enemy, or, with demo mode, the beast could be slain in a matter of seconds. what you don't seem to realize is that it's an intentional design in Nintendo games to have different elements make up the difficulty. Being good in one area may not help you in another. I'm not even going to begin to mention open world games.

I see it like this:

1.) The potential for the system to make for some hilarious glitched moments is high, meaning it'll be fun to watch for.

2.) Absurdly-built puzzles no longer have the power to halt you for ages, be they overly obscure or meant for those with reflexes of god.

3.) Leaving a game for an extend amount of time and returning lost can be recovered if the system points you in the right way.

4.) Bored/too wasted to play a game, but really wanna see and hear it again? DONE.

Use your imagination, kids.

lets move mario & luigi

See, that's what I'm talking about. You think your connection with video games makes you special. Nintendo trying to cater to "those people" upsets you for some reason. You don't like them watering down "your game" for those that are beneath you.

Welcome to real life. Nintendo runs a business. They are trying to make money. Keeping all those people that you look down on happy is what's keeping them on top. This doesn't mean that they are going to stop making Zelda or Super Smash Bros. or Metroid, so there's really no reason to be upset. All I see here is a smart business decision being made by a business. If you don't see that then you've crossed that fine line between having fun with video games and defining yourself by them. The side of that line that I fall on is probably what makes the outrage so strange to me.

I don't care, as long as there's a way to turn it off.

Play Easy with mario flash games:
http://www.mariobros.us

You guys know this is fake, right?
Right?

Don't have much of an opinion on this one. At first I thought it was pretty cool, as there are some video games out there that have spots in them that are nearly impossible, and don't have the necessary codes to help you along for just that one moment. On the other hand, what others have said is true, and it may even decrease the incentive to trying, defeating the purpose of the game.

Honestly, I'm on the fence with this one.

You don't have to use this option.If you want to use it on a difficult level then use it but you're not being forced to use it.It's sorta testing willpower to see if you have the willpower to not use it in a difficult level.