Hopefully you got a chance to play the Super Mario 64 HD remake online because it’s gone for good. Erik Roystan Ross, the college student responsible for the game has received a copyright infringement notice for both the web player version and the standalone Unity builds, which he released for free to the public.
Ross was a good sport about the ordeal, saying:
[It’s] fair enough, really. In light of Nintendo recently making a deal to release some of their IPs on mobile platforms, it’s probably not in their best interests to have a mobile-portable version of Mario 64 sitting around. In any case, I didn’t really expect for this project to get so popular, and was hoping it would function primarily as a educational tool and a novelty.
Tough luck, kid. Although, I doubt this had anything to do with Nintendo’s deal with DeNA. Ross received the infringement notice only days before the April 1st Nintendo Direct, where it was announced that Super Mario 64 would be released on the Wii U Virtual Console as the first of many Nintendo 64 titles. Shady, Nintendo!
Ross’s HD version of the game was a simple recreation of the first stage, Bob-omb Battlefield, so it’s likely that the title wouldn’t have taken too much thunder from the Wii U re-release. But, we can’t blame Nintendo for covering all of their bases. Now that the HD remake is out the window, it looks like we’ll just have to enjoy the classic. Super Mario 64 is currently on the Wii U eShop for $9.99.
