A new book recounts the history of Nintendo as seen through the tiny black pixel-eyes of Mario, the Japanese gamemaker’s most famous export.
Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America, written by Jeff Ryan and to published this week by Penguin, is the life story of Mario, from the character’s humble beginnings as nameless protagonist of an unknown arcade game to his current status as the unlikely face of the world’s biggest game company.
The story of Mario is the story of Nintendo, and by way of describing each game in the series, Ryan takes the reader through the gamemaker’s many ups and downs.
Super Mario is a fine book for the casual audience, written for the person who has never heard any of the stories that became part of gaming lore: Universal Pictures suing Nintendo over similarities between Donkey Kong and King Kong; Nintendo’s poor treatment of its onetime partner Sony, which directly led the latter to produce PlayStation; Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto making hit games based on his hobbies, e.g., dog ownership.
The larger theme of the book hits the nail right on the head: Ryan links the various wins and failures of Nintendo to illustrate the company’s philosophy as “lateral thinking with seasoned technology” – using old, cheap hardware in innovative ways to surprise consumers with low-cost alternatives. This explains flops like Virtual Boy as well as smash hits like Wii.
For me, Super Mario was something of a letdown because it is a collation of facts from books, gaming blogs and Wikipedia. Though Ryan says he scored an interview with Miyamoto, there’s little to show for it here: Practically everything in Super Mario is nicked from other reference materials.
Ryan also assiduously avoids the use of direct quotes, which tends to keep the reader at a distance. David Sheff might have played fast and loose with the chronology of Nintendo’s early years in his seminal 1993 book Game Over, but he made his subjects feel human. In the whole of Super Mario, there are maybe four direct quotes, one of which I was chagrined to find was lifted without attribution from Wired.com.
That said, I’m thankful Ryan pays such attention to detail; for a book so filled to bursting with obscure nomenclature – game titles, names of enemy characters, etc. – it is largely free of error. That said, it’s always a little irksome when the copy editor falls asleep at the keyboard, and Super Mario is no exception, from names (typos include “Alexis Pajitnov,” “Enzo Rubik“) to companies (“Komani,” “Kokatu“).
Nintendo’s 30-year history in the gaming business is long and convoluted, and Ryan does a game job of narrowing it down while cramming everything into a single, readable tome. Next, I’d like to see him apply his considerable writing talent to a subject that hasn’t already been covered several times over.
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