I'd say that kind of success is a given.  It's odd because it seems like Nintendo has some uncertainty with this title.  Weren't they concerned that E3 didn't make the proper impression?  This is THE game for the Wii this Christmas.  If it doesn't sell like hotcakes then NOTHING will.  And it's Mario and it's a platformer and it's a direct sequel to this insanely successful DS game and it's for the incredibly popular and successful Wii.  This is the definition of a slam-dunk instant hit.

And yet Miyamoto always feels the need to talk about it in an apologetic way.  "We don't think E3 gave the proper impression."  "We predict long term success."  Come on!  He says it like he's preparing excuses for poor first month sales.  This is going to be number one EASILY.

It's called handling expectations.

It's always better to undersell yourself, than to oversell.

Then I guess he should brag about how its holiday sales are gonna go thru the roof and how the HD systems don't stand a chance against a 2D game running on duct-taped purple lunchboxes squished into an Oreo cream center without the cookie sides.

But he's really apologizing because he couldn't include shoe-horned online play and user-generated content functions.

Yeah but Nintendo is arrogant.

Dude...

Making your own Mario levels? *drools*

Why did you have to mention that? Now that's all I can think about!

New Super Mario Bros. Wii will be a hit, regardless of what anyone says.

I really want this game.

By GP's metric, it can't be good.

They really are, you have to read between the lines, but the arrogance is very prominent.

I predict that the game will sell at least 1 copy.
I'm just making a safe bet here.

Is it really? It might be so in the rest of the world, but I can understand if they have some hesitation in Japan. We/They all thought Super Mario Galaxy would have stellar sales in Japan. Not even those commercials they had that made people see how similar SMG was to NSMB jump the sales for SMG.

Well 1+ million sold isn't anything to sneeze at for Japan.

True, but don't tell me they didn't expect to sell a lot more.

I think Miyamoto should do a couple more random kidnappings just to make sure.

Somebody should camp out at NCL's place with a sign that says "ready to be kidnapped by Miyamoto".

Photoshop?

No. Well maybe, but I meant it for real.

I know. But it would still be hilarious.

Yet the hardcore media act like NSMBWii is a minor title compared to Galaxy 2 and Other M. Galaxy 2 will probably sell decently but not above the 10 million barrier that Nintendo sets for major titles and Other M will be a total failure and I hope Malstrom's theory that any risky Metroid also sees a traditional Metroid released at the same time holds true (I'll be going for the 2D DS Metroid over the Wii story Mangatroid, thankyou).

Nintendo are idiots to even care if Japan likes this game or not.

Population of Japan: 127,590,000
Population of the USA: 307,698,000

Over twice the size and the North American market also includes Canada.  And this will be big in Europe as well.  Japan in comparison is a small piece of the puzzle.  And Nintendo is already king of Japan with the DS anyway.  NSMB Wii could sell ZERO copies in Japan and still be a big success.  Japanese companies like Nintendo are morons for letting nationalism affect their business model, yet they get all disappointed when some game bombs in Japan but is a huge runaway hit in America.  As long as you make the moolah why do you care?

Nintendo makes tons of money in Japan and they make tons of money in North America.  What products are the cause of the success in each market doesn't really matter.  This will be successful here and that means it will be successful.

Ignoring the sales from their home country... that's a bad business model.

Nintendo's goal for Galaxy was to make 3D Mario sell as much as 2D Mario. It failed. Now they're making a sequel out of developer pride because apparently Miyamoto somehow still thinks 3D Mario is better. And hell, the hardcore lapped it up, they went crazy for Galaxy 2 but didn't care much about NSMBW.

Well this is my opinion but I wouldn't be horribly proud of NSMB:DS

Honestly, NSMB DS wasn't bad. It was still quality gaming. However, methinks the difficulty could have been uped a bit. Hence why the Demo Play option is giving Nintendo a much needed break from appealing to casuals and at the same time trying to appeal to the whiny hardcore brats.

And NSMB Wii has Yoshi. That's 100% more awesome added to awesome.

Well it's not like Miyamoto makes games anymore.  No wonder.

He's too busy whipping Koizumi with Mario Galaxy 2.

Oh man. Never even thought about user created levels for this, it'd really be perfect.

But then it would be getting compared to Little Big Planet, and Nintendo doesn't want to do that to themselves or to Sony. They want people to continue to think that NSMB is Mario and must be FUN, not like LBP but not HD.

Not to mention to craft a good level builder ususally means you have to sacrifice when it comes to designed levels. Personally I'd rather have a well crafted game by a good designer then a good level creation toolset.

I'd rather have both like Brawl. Mario Bros is perfect for user levels, platformers are in our DNA.

Same. And I don't think SSBBrawl has either one.

I didn't say they should ignore it outright but they certainly shouldn't make decisions that affect the North American market based entirely on what's going on with the Japanese market.  They do that.  A lot of Japanese videogame companies do that.

Why should Nintendo care for example if 3D Mario isn't as popular in Japan as 2D Mario is?  3D Mario is very successful in the larger North American market.  Let's say they tinker with the next 3D Mario to make it appeal more to the Japanese market but these changes hurt the game's appeal in the North American market.  So they trade 5 million American sales for 1 million Japanese.  That's fucking dumb.

But Nintendo gets all uppity that Metroid for example is successful in the larger North American market but the Japanese don't like it so much.  Since this is all about money that shouldn't matter.  The larger market likes the product.  If only one of the markets is going to embrace it the ideal one did.

Having both a 2D and a 3D Mario game for the Wii is ideal anyway since it covers all the bases and most Mario fans will embrace both.

A 2.5d Klonoa type Mario is what both markets want. Maybe some day.

Super Paper Mario was almost there.

But the game turned out to be SUPER TEXT TEXT

3D Mario will never sell as well as 2D Mario because there's a ceiling to how many people will want to learn to move around in a 3D environment.  It's really off-putting to anybody above the age of 50, I'd say.

Indeed it was, and it scared me far far away.

This is an absolute fact. My own mother does not like Super Mario 64 (despite playing it a couple of times), because she has trouble with the star missions. 2-D is far more simple, and thus, easily accessible.