SPC Soapbox - 6/5/2014 Mario Maker Rumor, Satoru Iwata Missing E3, and VGChartz

It's been a long time coming, but the SPC Soapbox is back! It seems fitting we do this on the six-year anniversary of SuperPhillip Central! For those uninitiated, the SPC Soapbox is where we take three video game-related topical stories and newsmakers and give our thoughts on each. These thoughts are too brief to be presented as their own separate opinion pieces, so we just put three into a trio and call it the SPC Soapbox! This edition's topics include the supposed Mario Maker leak, Satoru Iwata's absence from E3 due to illness, and the credibility of using VGChartz for sales information.

Mario Maker Rumored for E3 2014.

We don't do a lot of rumors on SuperPhillip Central. That isn't because we're above doing so, it's just that it's very difficult to figure out which has some truth in them and which do not. The Internet and various photo-imaging tools has made it incredibly easy to make mock-ups and complete falsehoods to trick the unassuming.

Mario Maker has been outed by various sites, posting the following grainy (of course) picture that you can see alongside this paragraph. The poster shows the classic NES Super Mario Bros. graphics and a stylus that is held over a sprite, leading many to believe that this supposed game is a level creator for either or both the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Well, the name of the game sort of leads many to believe that, too!

As stated, it's all too easy nowadays to fool the gullible or those without much insight into thinking something completely phony is indeed truth. That said, Michael McWhertor of Polygon suggests that this rumor is actually true, saying that he's a bit more confident of the supposed game's legitimacy.

One would think that if this was a big announcement from Nintendo, the E3 sign wouldn't have been so readily available to see-- that Nintendo would have been much more secretive regarding it. Also, if it was a big announcement to come at E3 this year, wouldn't you expect Nintendo to put the game's reveal under a non-disclosure agreement? Then, why would a journalist be able to hint about it so transparently?

We'd love this rumored leak to be true. We're lovers of level design, just look at all the time we've spent on LittleBigPlanet! A Mario-themed level creator sounds absolutely wonderful, but on the same token, it depends on how in-depth the tool is for users. Regardless, we don't have too long to wait to see if Mario Maker is the real deal or not!

Satoru Iwata Will Miss Attending E3 This Year.

It was announced by Polygon that Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata would not be making his usual trip to E3 to attend the event. This has been confirmed by representatives due to illness. We at SuperPhillip Central hope for a speedy recovery, whether it's a common cold or something else.

Regardless, that brings us to our major point, as we don't really deliver news on a regular basis: If you take this opportunity to throw in a retort on how an ill Satoru Iwata is sick because he's stressed, doesn't deserve to be the CEO of Nintendo, or any other means of crapping on the man because of his health (which a decent person wouldn't even jump to conclusions on as to what illness he may have), you're, simply put, a piece of shit. You're human garbage who cares more about your precious games, console war nonsense, and getting what you want than about empathy for your fellow human being. Forgive our harshness, but some of you just disgust us.

Now is NOT the time to discuss such things. First, we don't know how sick Mr. Iwata is, and quite frankly, it's none of our business. It's a personal matter that should stay personal. We were fortunate to get assurance that Satoru Iwata's illness is not preventing him from doing his duties as president of Nintendo. He simply was advised not to travel, so please save the "fire Iwata" campaigns for one of the other millions of topics that it is shoehorned into on a daily basis.

Signed,
Humans that aren't disgusting individuals

"I Know It's VGChartz, but..."

Ah, a statement that comes before many sales-related arguments on message boards, article comment sections, and even journalists in the industry. The truth here is that VGChartz is not a credible source of finding out about console and games sales. You can live in ignorance and think that VGChartz has reputable sources that know more than what even the NPD and game companies themselves hand out, but it's simply untrue.

VGChartz and its owner have a well-known habit of making up numbers, only to correct them-- stealthily, might we add-- when ACTUAL numbers are released, whether by NPD in the United States, Media Create in Japan, or any other official source of game sales and charts. The site has even been caught lying multiple times, most significantly when they revealed sold Wii numbers early in the console's life. It would have been believable, too, perhaps if the numbers they gave of what was sold hadn't been more than what Nintendo had actually shipped.

So yes, noting and sourcing VGChartz in any kind of reasonable way makes us immediately tune you out. It makes you lack credibility and hurts your argument significantly, so for all that is right and pure in the world, please don't do it. Friends don't let friends post VGChartz numbers.