Since the Wii was first released, it has always been recognised by the colour White. The console is white, the controller is white, the game cases are white, heck, even the logo it primarily white. But New Super Mario Bros. Wii is set to break that trend by having the whole box coloured red. Nintendo of America President, Reggie Fils-Aime, explains why…
New Super Mario Brothers is such a special title. It is something that [Mario creator Shigeru] Miyamoto and his team have been so passionate about—that when it came time for the final packaging, we had many internal discussions as to how we make it special. And that’s where the idea of the red box came from: How do we signify to our Nintendo fans, to our greater community the specialness of this title? The red is Mario Red. What we did differently here in the U.S., when we were looking at the final packaging, we were concerned that the Wii logo on the red, in what we call the branding bar, was a little too plain just white. So it’s in our market we’ve made it silver with the metallic ink to make it pop more.
According to Reggie, the box colour is set to symbolise how important and “special” Mario is. Well, it is a smart marketing technique: a lone red among a vast array of white can draw eyes.