Mario Kart Wii in NYC

I attended Nintendo’s Mario Kart Wii promotional event in New York City at 12:00 this afternoon and recorded a video:

I also snapped some photos:
Flickr – Mario Kart Wii promo event, NYC 4/24/08

Based on my experience with other Nintendo events in NYC – the Nintendo World grand opening in May 2005, the debut of Nintendogs with special guest Shigeru Miyamoto in September 2005, and the debut of Super Mario Galaxy in November 2007 – I anticipated a huge crowd, but when I got there, it was just me and one other guy standing in front of the Sheraton hotel on 7th Avenue waiting for Mario. Oh well. When Mario finally walked down the steps, the other guy and I surrounded him and were taking tons of pictures like idiots.

Eventually, a small crowd gathered and children were genuinely excited to see Mario walking down the street. I was surprised by how many adults asked to take a picture with him. It was cool.

The point of this event: Nintendo’s new racing video game Mario Kart Wii debuts Sunday, April 27, 2008, in the U.S. To promote it, Mario walked back and forth along the sidewalk holding the steering wheel that’s included with the game and hailed taxi cabs for people. Steering wheel…racing game…taxi cabs…it sort of makes sense, right? As a bonus, Nintendo paid $10 toward each fare, including mine. Thanks!

Being a video game fan and a Nintendo fan, I knew what the event was for, but I don’t think people walking by did. As you can tell by my video, this was an incredibly quiet publicity event. Mario didn’t talk, but neither did the woman who was with him. She should’ve been belting out, “Hey everybody, Mario Kart Wii is coming this Sunday! It features twelve-player online fun and a motion-sensing steering wheel! Who wants a cab ride? The first $10 is on us!” She wasn’t. There weren’t even any signs or free keychains.

I realize this event wasn’t really necessary because several million copies of the game will be bought automatically by Nintendo fans like me, but still, someone should’ve been handing out buttons or fliers letting people know what was going on. If you’re reading this and work for Nintendo, please consult me for your next game publicity event.

4 Replies to “Mario Kart Wii in NYC”

  1. I don’t recognize him as anyone famous.

    I wonder what Nintendo is planning for the Wii Fit release next month. Maybe Mario will stand outside of a gym and throw medicine balls at people walking by.

  2. I’m surprised at Nintendo, I thought they had a pretty good marketing team. They should have had Mario drive throughout NYC, in a specialty car with ads for the game or something like that. I could only imagine what the GTA IV promotion will be like. Free mugging with purchase of the game.

  3. I was surprised, too. To be fair, Nintendo is also promoting Mario Kart Wii nationwide with its Driving School Tour. The problem is, two huge cities are missing: Los Angeles and New York! This taxi event was Nintendo’s chance at capturing the NYC market and it failed, but like I wrote, millions of fans will buy the game anyway, so it doesn’t really matter in the end.

    The Mario Kart Wii Driving School Tour is going on until mid-May:

    April 4-6: San Diego, CA
    April 11-13: Las Vegas, NV
    April 18-20: Denver, CO
    April 24: Dallas, TX
    April 26-27: Houston, TX
    May 2-4: Chicago, IL
    May 8: Washington D.C.
    May 10-11: Philadelphia, PA
    May 14-15: Boston, MA
    May 17-18: Atlantic City, NJ

    Why no NYC?

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