How long will Super Mario 3D All-Stars be out? It’s a great question to ask since Nintendo announced the game and said it would have limited availability. So when is it going away and how long will it be available? Why does it have a limited release?
How long will Super Mario 3D All-Stars be out? | Limited availability dates explained
The Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection will be available “through March 31, 2021.” This includes the physical and digital versions of the game, although a more specific time was not given. You will not be able to buy the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection after that date though. But if you buy it digitally, you will be able to redownload it after that date.
Nintendo’s wording makes this a little harder to nail down since some stores may have physical stock after March 31. It’s not like Miyamoto himself is going to every GameStop and Best Buy and destroying every copy the moment the clock strikes midnight on April 1, 2021. But waiting that long is quite a gamble, given the current pandemic, how retail is working now, and the lust for Nintendo games that makes them a hot commodity.
But this date also means that Nintendo is probably going to pull the game from the eShop right when April 1 rolls around (but again, no specific time was given). Although, don’t be too surprised if somehow it pulls the game on March 31 either.
Why is Super Mario 3D All-Stars a limited release?
It would be easy to just say “because Nintendo” here (Super Mario All-Stars also had a limited release in the past), but there’s more to it, if you buy Nintendo’s somewhat shaky reasoning.
According to Video Game Story Time, Nintendo has been very aware of how to allocate its finite resources to create things like amiibo to the infamously scarce NES Classic. Satoru Iwata once said during an investor call, after being briefed by an outside lawyer, that making more of something that was previously labeled as “limited” could break the Japanese Law of Preventing Unjustifiable Extra of Unexpected Benefit and Misleading Representation. Essentially, Nintendo made the game a limited release to make sure it allocated its resources appropriately while also subscribing to Japanese law.
However, that does not explain why the digital version is also going away and likely just opens to door for the company to resell the games into the future while providing a convenient scapegoat. Nintendo knows how popular Mario is and didn’t have to announce as limited in the first place. The company is basically saying that it can’t make more of something that is marketed as “limited” yet knew this collection would be popular and announced it as scarce anyway. That scarcity creates demand and a ticking clock may force some to think they need to buy it now or forever lose it.
Also, having a limited supply of amiibo and hardware is pretty different from a limited-run game. Nintendo doesn’t usually announced limited games, after all, and makes plenty of games every single year, whereas hardware and amiibo are more rare and probably take more resources to crate, ship, and store. Nintendo should also have more capacity to make games even during a pandemic since it hasn’t made many games in 2020 and doesn’t have much announced for 2021.
