Nintendo's 10 Biggest Blunders And Fails

Nintendo, for all of their creative genius, seem to make horrendous choices in who they work with and how they do business. An example of this is the appalling Super Mario Bros. movie released in 1993.

The movie bore only a superficial similarity with the massive game franchise it was based on. The casting was awful, the characterization even worse. It was as if whoever had written and directed the movie had no idea who Mario was or they had a disdain for video games in general.

The movie bombed and was panned as one of the worst movies ever made at the time. Nintendo were left looking foolish as their shining star mascot, Mario, was bastardized on screen in front of millions of fans.

Then again, in 1993, Nintendo licensed Philips to create a Legend of Zelda game on the Philips CD-i. This was done in response to a deal with Sony that would introduce CDs into the Nintendo library. However, that deal collapsed and Nintendo instead turned to Philips. The Philips games were almost worse than the Super Mario Bros movie. They were ugly, poorly designed and almost unplayable. The only saving grace for Nintendo was that hardly anyone actually owned a Philips CD-i. In one year, Nintendo had allowed two of its biggest properties to be pimped out and abused in front of their fans.

Nintendo had always been a familiar face synonymous with quality and trust. Fans were willing to blindly plonk down their money if they saw the Nintendo seal of approval. After 1993, gamers were becoming wary of the Nintendo brand and their lifelong connections with their fan base was beginning to decay.