Wii Red Bundle Commemorates 25th Anniversary of Super Mario Brothers

Wii was the biggest news on the block just a couple of years ago, and in the past year, there has been a little variety added, with the Wii Black Console. Now, just in time for the holidays, the Wii Red Console is available as a limited edition commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Brothers game.

Somewhere in the midst of my college years, the early video gaming craze moved from the realm of Atari Space Invaders, into the realm of a couple of funny little workmen, Mario and Luigi. I was completely unaware of the transition, probably due to student teaching and papers and such, until the interim summer between graduation and my first teaching assignment. Working as a Sears PBX operator, I spent the summer fielding queries from squeaky voices which all wanted to know if we had Nintendo tapes. The first time the question came, I replied, "One moment, please," and asked a co-worker, what are Nintendo tapes, and where do I transfer this call. Quick explanation: Video games.

In the next couple of years, I became more acquainted with the genre, as my teenage brother received his own television and Nintendo.  Though the Super Mario Brothers were a hit, as a math teacher, I much preferred Tetris, which was much too addictive.  Fun, but addictive!

 Not long after my introduction to Nintendo, Gameboy arrived on the scene.  The original Gameboy handheld had a simple black and white display, and was a portable means of enjoying those same classic Mario Brothers games, as well as Tetris and others.  The gameboy became an interesting math lesson during the holidays, particularly after a few years of its existence.  In it's premier years, the Gameboy system was well over $100 in price, and yearly, there seemed to be a drop of about $10.  My middle school math students and I would have a great discussion about the "why" of the price change:  more available, not as new, competition?  Lots of great ideas for math lessons can come out of your holiday ads, and are a relevant subject, at least in the eyes of kids who love video games!

Sure enough, there was competition, though for the life of me, I can't remember specifics. Sony comes to mind. Still, Nintendo made an early name for itself, and I have to say that it stuck. To this day, other systems seem overwhelming, while Nintendo seems simple. Nintendo has continued to improve its offerings. Gameboy games and consoles which supported color on screens, and color in the casings, made it more modernized, and fashionable, too! Later, the Gameboy Advance and Gameboy Micro. 

 I was really out of the loop on these systems until my kids entered the tween years, at which point my interest was renewed.  The kids received a Gamecube from an aunt, and things got interesting.  The amazing thing with Gamecube was the ability to hook up 4 controllers, and have my 8 kiddos pair up.  In spite of the ability for everyone to play in cooperation, the fact is that it is very difficult for this many youngsters to cooperate in the small amount of space it takes to operate...hence, I don't care for video gaming systems of the sort in our home, because of the chaos they summon. 

Wii's remote controllers have made the possibilities more interesting, and we may give this system a go in the near future.  Additional selling points, from the kids' point of view, is the fact that Wii works in unison with NetFlix, allowing a wireless network connection to serve as the means for streaming on demand "Watch Instantly" features to a television, without the need to connect directly to a PC.  This, by the way, may be the selling point that gets Mom and Dad on board. 

Meanwhile, Gameboy has gone by the wayside, with deep Black Friday discounts a few years ago signaling their demise.  If you see a handheld game system go that far down in price, be aware that it is on its way out!  The Nintendo DS was already available at the time, and in the last year, Nintendo DSI came on the scene, with camera and internet capabilities.  Soon to be released (next spring, it's rumored), the Nintendo 3DS, with 3D technology in a compact format.  At this writing, the Nintendo DS Lite is showing up in some Black Friday ads for 2010, at less than $100. 

For the math teacher, this is a great lesson in economics, and it would be really intriguing to have students attempt to track down pricing information, with charting and graphing. For a middle school that uses a teaming approach to education, this is a unit that can be integrated into many subject areas: science (covering technological developments), history (a history of video games, and games in various cultures through the ages would be interesting to middle school aged students), language (communications, with letters to businesses in search of historical information), and of course, mathematics.

If you are an educator who wants to tie such interests into your daily classroom routine, consider a weekly charting activity, having students bring in the weekend ads from various retailers, and track on separate charts the prices for a given set of retailers. Set parameters, such as selecting 4 main stores, and focus on a given type of device, or a given producer. For example, just focus on Nintendo. Or, just focus on handheld gaming systems. Each week, allow a short period for students to update their information on the graphs.

 This may be adjusted as a full classroom graph, with the weekly update happening as a common activity and discussion time. Or, it may happen as a cooperative group activity, with a few minutes for groups to meet together, update their charts, and discuss their observations. It can also be done as an individual activity, with each student maintaining their own charts and lists of observations. This really is a pertinent and practical sort of activity for students, because as many of us realize, graphs and statistics and trends are very powerful and poignant tools now, more in terms of costs and values of homes, growth of jobs (or decline), unemployment trends. Teach your students, through something such as video games, to interpret and understand data, and those things affecting it. Make the most of their interests.

 With the pending release of a handheld 3D gaming system, the Nintendo 3DS, there is likely to be further innovation in this realm, as usual, with stiff competition from Sony and Microsoft.  Likewise, the competition will be fierce in terms of motion based gaming through video game consoles.  While Nintendo made huge strides with Wii, the Microsoft XBOX Kinect is innovative in terms of its ability to track body movement.  For educators, this is a great challenge to present to your middle schoolers:  predict the future of video gaming!  Sometimes, youngsters have a better grasp of such areas of interest.  And of course, for us old timers (at least in terms of video games), there are always the plug and play Atarii games, taking us back to a simpler day, where figures were easy enough to manipulate, even if the balls were square!

Thanks to the following at Flickr for use of their photos through Creative Commons Licensing:

Wwarby for Gameboy Original

HeyRocker for Handhelds