Super Mario Game & Watch to launch with known bug

[Ryccardo]

Announced two months ago, Nintendo's most recent novelty system, the Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary, is due to launch next Friday.

The reactions to its announcement were already very mixed, mainly on the basis of its significantly lower content to price ratio than the NES and SNES Minis while likely ending up facing the same inadequate supply issues as those systems; however, as of today, Nintendo announced they discovered an issue in the units they have sent to distribution:

Please note: We would like to inform you about an error with one of the digital clock’s 35 little touches in the Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros. system. Unfortunately, the ‘Mario Drawing’ song (vocalised in English only) that can be accessed by holding the A button, displays an incorrect language’s set of lyrics if German, French, Italian or Spanish is selected from the title screen. English, Dutch and Japanese languages remain unaffected. However, it is possible to change the language of the lyrics shown at any time while the song plays. Please see the table below for further details. Language settings can only be selected for the ‘Mario Drawing’ song. The system launch is not affected. Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros. will launch on November 13th as planned. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Chosen language in title screen	Language of song lyrics to be shown
French	German
Spanish	French
German	Italian
Italian	Spanish

At least the first batch of the unit is therefore going to release with a "defective" firmware; and while Nintendo has not announced any plans to correct the issue, it is likely these news will only further polarize the potential customers' opinions and aggressive collector's mentality.

Furthermore, with nobody having documented the hardware yet, it is still unknown whether the software will be trivially replaceable as has been the case on the previous Nintendo's (and many imitator's) previous entries in the retro compilation dedicated system class.


Source

 

[luigirockz]

That's very disappointing that Nintendo did not talk about a future fix

 

[eyeliner]

A lot of idiots will pick these up, and will try to sell them as "ultra rare boxed mint sealed untouched" items to other idiots a few years later. Gotta love them collectors of trash.

 

[Harsky]

Still gutted that they didn't actually include the Game & Watch version of Super Mario Bros or actually use this for the Game and Watch's 40th anniversary this April and include all the Gameboy G&W Gallery games on it.

 

[Deleted User]

.

 

[AmandaRose]

The bug that it has really isn't a big deal so what is the bug. Well it's a language error related to the "Mario Drawing" song that plays over the device's digital clock.

As detailed on the company's support website, the handheld will display the song's lyrics in the wrong language if you select German, French, Italian, or Spanish from the title screen. Nintendo notes that the error only affects these specific languages; English, Dutch, and Japanese will display the lyrics correctly, while the song itself is only vocalized in English.

Nintendo also confirms that the song lyrics are the only aspect of the handheld that makes use of the language setting, so the error is isolated to this particular circumstance. Players can also change the language at any time while the song is playing.

 

[Bladexdsl]

nintendo turning into bethesda now?!