Thursday, May 30, 2013

Super Mario Galaxy 2, how much has it been played? U.S. Wii Nintendo Channel data report


Coffee Beans
E3 is right around the corner and while Nintendo won't be holding their typical E3 press conference, they will be doing a Nintendo Direct for the Wii U on June 11th, and smaller conferences at E3 as well. The Wii U's first 3D Mario game is supposed to be shown this year, and even be at E3 in playable form (maybe even at the Best Buy E3 Wii U demo stations?).

Before looking forward at the Wii U's first 3D Mario title, with whatever trailer and news Nintendo shares at E3, let's take a look at one of the Wii's 3D Mario action/platforming games: Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 released for the Wii on May 23, 2010 with a MSRP of $49.99, and received an ESRB rating of "EVERYONE" with "Mild Cartoon Violence" listed as content for parents and gamers to be aware of. The game was developed by Nintendo's EAD studio, like the original Super Mario Galaxy was as well.

If you own a Wii or Wii U and haven't played Super Mario Galaxy 2, but are interested in it, how many hours can you expect from it? Brew yourself some coffee, and let's take a look at the official U.S. Wii Nintendo Channel data to see how many hours Wii owners have reported playing the game, and the average hours reported so far!

The Brew
Super Mario Galaxy 2 now has approximately 660,796 U.S. Wii owners with over 23,000,000 Total Hours of game-play reported, with about 1,100 days reported. This is an increase of nearly 650,000 more U.S. Wii owners with game-play data reported for SMG2, than were reported when its data first debuted in May 2010.

The 23+ million Total Hours of reported game-play is more than half the time span of the world's recorded history. If you're not sure what that is, it means Super Mario Galaxy 2 has been played for more than 2,500 years worth of time.

From the Nintendo Channel data reported, U.S. Wii owners have averaged playing the game 35 Hours 28 Minutes, which averages out to about 2 Hours 2 Minutes played per time reported.


For some comparison, Super Mario Galaxy 2's reported average hours "Per person" are now higher than the original Super Mario Galaxy's, but lower than its 2D competitor's, that being New Super Mario Bros. Wii. In short, based on the averages reported "Per person", you can expect more replay value from Super Mario Galaxy 2, than the original Super Mario Galaxy.

How have the critic and customer reviews changed for the game since we looked at the game in May 2011? Well, Super Mario Galaxy 2 still ranks in the Wii's "Top 10" games according to critics' reviews averages on GameRankings.com, and its review score average is slightly higher now at a 97.35%, based on 56 reviews on GameRankings.com.

The game's Amazon.com customer review score average has increased slightly as well, and is now sitting at a 92.85%, based on 400 customer reviews; compared with having 284 customer reviews in 2011.

Caffeinated Thoughts
Super Mario Galaxy 2 is not a game in our Wii/Wii U collection, and it's one I still haven't played. If we did end up getting it now, I would play it on our Wii U in the system's Wii mode though, due to me trying to limit the disc drive use in our Wii.

If you have never seen any footage from the game, here's a trailer for it that might get you interested, especially if you're a fan of Luigi and are happy about the "Year of Luigi":

Nintendo made the original Super Mario Galaxy, which released in 2007, a "Nintendo Selects" title in 2011. Surprisingly, or perhaps not knowing Nintendo recently, Super Mario Galaxy 2 has still not made it in the Nintendo Selects lineup of Wii games, and finding the game online for under $50 new, is a bit challenging on the world's largest online retailer. Even GameStop doesn't have the game available to be purchased new online. Which, makes me wonder if Nintendo is about to expand the Wii's Nintendo Selects lineup of games, and add Super Mario Galaxy 2 to it? I don't know, but I do find it interesting Amazon.com  and GameStop.com don't currently have the game in stock to sell directly.

If you are a Wii U owner and didn't own a Wii, you probably know by now that the Wii U is backwards compatible with Wii games (unlike the Xbox One and PlayStation 4?). So, if you haven't played Super Mario Galaxy 2, you can play it on your Wii U if you have the proper Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers.

I know many consider the Super Mario Galaxy Wii games to be the best looking games for the system. I think it will be interesting to see if the Wii U's 3D Mario keeps the same graphical art style as those, and really shows what the system can do (I hope), or if Nintendo will change it up like what has been done with the Zelda games over the years.

I'm thinking the Wii U's first 3D Mario game might even be titled Super Mario Universe, continuing off the "Galaxy" theme; but Nintendo could just throw a "U" on the end like they did with New Super Mario Bros. U, and call it Super Mario U. No matter what they call it though, I am interested to see the art style of the game and what direction they have gone with it.

While I'm thinking the setting will be more like the Super Mario Galaxy games, I kind of hope they do a throwback to Super Mario 64's setting with Princess Peach's Castle being where you run around and select levels from.

Now, if you want a chance to win Psychonauts, Costume Quest, and Stacking as the image above mentions, here's what to do. Make sure you are following me on Twitter, HERE. Then, tweet out this post using the Twitter button beneath the post (seen in the image below if you're not sure), and include the hashtag #SuperMarioGalaxyCoffee and tweet it to @NintendoAmerica. The winner has been announced, HERE.

Questions
Have any of you perhaps recently played and beaten Super Mario Galaxy 2, if so, what'd you think about the game? If you played the original SMG and SMG2, which one did you enjoy more?

Also, with Nintendo revealing the Wii U's first 3D Mario action title in just a few weeks (12 days really!), is there anything you're hoping to see from the game?

You can buy Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2, and a few other Mario related items from Amazon.com below!


If you're interested in reading/seeing older data reports on Super Mario Galaxy 2, you can find them linked here, here, here, here, herehere, and also here.

16 comments:

  1. Nintendo Fan 4 Lif3May 31, 2013 at 4:36 AM

    I want the new 3D Mario to blow me away... blow me sky high

    ReplyDelete
  2. So... yeah. Never played either of the Galaxy titles. The 3D Mario games just never resonated with me the way the 2D ones have over the years. I spent a good deal of time with Mario on the 64, but I never enjoyed it as much as the more traditional 2D titles before it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Are you hoping more like the Super Mario Galaxy games, or perhaps more like Super Mario 64?


    Thanks for stopping by!

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Never played either of the Galaxy titles."
    *Obvious Nintendo hater, is obvious.

    I enjoy the 2D Mario games a great deal, but I really enjoy Super Mario 64 as well. I think it's probably because of the setting, and how the levels are set up (multiple stars in each one), and the exploration aspect of running around the castle finding new levels. I even enjoyed Super Mario Sunshine more than Super Mario Galaxy (from what I remember anyway), but never did beat it.


    Thanks for the feedback!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nintendo Fan 4 Lif3May 31, 2013 at 12:50 PM

    To be honest, I enjoyed all the 3D Mario games and would like Nintendo to do more in each of those environments, but to narrow down, I would like either something more on the backdrop of Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Sunshine since they both never got sequels and also there is still much more than Nintendo can do with those worlds. I think they should give the Galaxy games a break for the Wii U and focus on the other two. I liked how open, adventurous, and how much exploration there was in Super Mario 64 and liked the openness, wondrous levels, and F.L.U.D.D. from Super Mario Sunshine so I'd like to see where Nintendo goes from there; but I really do want Nintendo to exceed my expectations, they can't fail now. The one I want the most is a return to Super Mario Sunshine, especially since that was my very fist video game that I ever played so it is a very significant-for lack of a better word- part of my past and life-long experience of video games and I haven't stopped playing since and beseech Nintendo to do it justice. A lot of people started out on Nintendo systems but as they get older they forget about them and move on; I want Nintendo to steer the industry in their favor so that gamers remember why they play, who got them into gaming in the first place, and the joy of playing; that reason is Nintendo. If they can blow gamers' socks off at E3 whether it's a sequel to 64 or Sunshine or something different and other Nintendo IP, then nothing will stop them then. Can't wait to see what they're working on, I'll be watching their livestream and head to Best Buy even to play the demos.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is such a fantastic game. I'd say it easy tops Galaxy 1 with a better post-game and Yoshi! I think Galaxy 1 gets bonus points for being so fresh though, and 2 more or less feeling like an expansion pack (a worthy expansion though!)


    I haven't collected all of the stars yet though, I'm in the post-game. It's something that I've always wanted to get around to doing. . .Perhaps I'll make it a goal to accomplish before the end of the year in honor of Year of Luigi!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'd pick Galaxy 2 by a slim margin. Navigating the observatory in G1 was a neat idea but confusing at times. I'd like to see a return to Sub-Con. A world of dreams offers all kinds of possibilities.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for the feedback, and commenting about SM64DS. Having a little one that is enjoying gaming on a DS Lite, and playing games like Mario Kart DS, New Super Mario Bros., and Kirby Mass Attack on it, I have wondered if how SM64DS controls are handled, and if he could get the hang of them easily enough.

    He runs around in SM64 on the Virtual Console just fine (considering his age), and completes some of the levels with finding the Stars in them. He even won the race against Koopa the Quick last year, which was really awesome.


    I do think a HUB of Peach's Castle in nice HD graphics would be really nice. I don't want a simple update though (like what Wind Waker is getting), I would want a slightly larger castle/area to explore.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm a little familiar with SMG2's navigation method, the big Mario planet head, moving around the galaxy or something? (Maybe thinking of something else?)


    Thanks for the feedback!

    ReplyDelete
  10. "Can't wait to see what they're working on, I'll be watching their livestream and head to Best Buy even to play the demos."


    Yeah, depending on our schedule, I may take Bean 1 (our oldest) with me to the Best Buy in our area doing the E3 event. I read somewhere they might be handing out some "items", and he enjoys Nintendo things, so I'm interested to see how well it's done (or not).


    Being that the Super Mario Galaxy games are so popular, I think it would be cool to see Nintendo do another 3D Mario Wii U game setting first, but perhaps next year, or in early 2015 release Super Mario Galaxy 3 for the Wii U. I imagine that would be received well, and give them time to flesh out more ideas.


    Thanks for stopping by again, and the feedback!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Yeah, I was one of the few people that didn't have a problem with the d-pad controls on SM64DS (I wasn't a fan of the stylus controls), but I can imagine for a small child the imprecise controls may be frustrating.

    Unfortunately I no longer have a copy of the game (I plan on rebuying one soon) but I've been very curious to check it out on my 3DS to see how well the controls would be on that.

    And yeah, with the increase in technology, I think they could do some really cool things with the HUB world and expand upon what we had in SM64.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yeah, you have a spaceship shaped like Mario's head for some reason, but it's much more like SMB3, so finding levels/challenges you haven't completed yet is a snap. The observatory is much like the castle in SMB64, but sometimes I have to run around to find the level I'm looking for, which can be a pain.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yeah, I had trouble getting into Sunshine as well. My son and youngest enjoyed it, but I don't know that either one beat it.

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Keep the comments clean. Rated "E" for Everyone. :)

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