While we're all playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii, tossing our friends into bottomless pits and reacquainting ourselves with the Koopalings, Japanese Wii owners are still waiting for the game's December 3 release date. For now, instead of the game, they get ... these commercials, featuring people dressed in inexplicable, matching bohemian outfits, playing NSMB Wii with a lot of excitement and not too much skill.
Siliconera notes that the game's ostensible banner feature -- multiplayer -- is totally missing from these ads, in favor of presenting the experience as something that's easy to get into. We suppose if you're really terrible at Mario games (a plight with which we sympathize), you don't want to be reminded that other people have an easy way to witness your terribleness. Still, we think the tentative play emphasizes the sense of discovery that is so wonderful about the first trip through any Mario level.
I was in Tokyo last week and whether it was Gundam, Street Fighter 4, Mahjong or Beatmania, the kids playing it just sat their stone-eyed and expressionless. Even the guys watching them were silent. Arcades in Akihabara are SERIOUS BUSINESS.
The man playing is Ninomiya, from Arashi, a famous JPop band. It's of common knowledge that Nino enjoys videogames, so it's no surprise seeing him on an advertisement of one of the biggest game launches here in Japan.
Who cares if the CM's are fail. People are only going to pay attention to the cool guy in there anyway XD Congrats to Nino, who finally gets to do a game CM after all these years~
These two people are probably famous in Japan... it looks to me like one of those "HEY GUYZ CELEBRITIES ARE PEOPLE TOO!" advertisements just like those awful myTouch commercials over here.
This Wii game has the word "Mario" in it. So even with ZERO advertising it will still sell millions. Have you ever seen a Japanese Pokemon ad? Does it exist?
The guy's Kazunari Ninomiya, member of a j-pop band called Arashi, and is a well known fan of Nintendo, that's why he's on this ad, Arashi is the top band in japan, they can be seen in tons of ads.
