PETA wags the finger at Nintendo for Mario's taste in furry power-ups

Mario Kils Tanooki
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, has chosen a peculiar target for its next pro-animal campaign. You all likely know him quite well: Super Mario. The organization has created a highly suggestive Flash game that essentially calls developer Nintendo out for what it claims is a message that says it's OK to skin animals and wear them as suits.

You could also say this for Mario's less popular Frog Suit, but that just wouldn't have the same sting as "Mario Kills Tanooki." That's the title of the game, which throws players behind the controls of--literally--a skinned tanuki. You can probably already guess the game's objective: Capture Mario ... who happens to be flying away with your fur coat. So much for subtleties.

"Tanooki may be just a 'suit' in Mario games, but in real life, tanuki are raccoon dogs who are skinned alive for their fur," the PETA game's website reads. "By wearing Tanooki, Mario is sending the message that it's OK to wear fur."

The timing of Mario Kills Tanooki is spot on, as Nintendo just released Super Mario 3D Land in which the plumber's famous Tanooki Suit is a prominent feature. Frankly, we've never seen a more menacing Mario than within PETA's interactive call to arms in defense of the tanuki. Now, you gotta' wonder how the organization would feel about this guy.

Facebook has more gamers than Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo combined?

Facebook games are big, but they might not be that huge just yet. At the company's London edition of the F8 conference, Facebook director of partnerships Ethan Beard said that it has more gamers than Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft combined, TechRadar reports. We're not exactly certain what measure Beard was referring to, because our math adds up a bit differently.

"Social design inside social gaming has driven fantastic growth," Beard told F8 conference-goers. "It's revolutionising gaming. We have over 200 million social gamers on Facebook every month; that's more Facebook gamers than the Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo combined."

But after looking at the number of units sold by each company, compared to Facebook's reported 200 million monthly players, we're not 100 percent on board with that call. Nintendo has shipped over 87 million Wii units and over 147 million Nintendo DS systems to date, as of June 30. And Microsoft has sold over 57 million Xbox 360 consoles as of Sept. 30, while Sony sold nearly 52 million PlayStation 3 rigs as of July 31.

Social games have no doubt garnered more players in such a short amount of time than any gaming platform to date. But, if you look at the amount of consoles shipped and sold by all three major manufacturers, Beard's claim appears to fall a bit short. That is, unless Beard is talking online gamers. Then Facebook just might have the big three beat, to which Beard said, "These aren't games with friends sprinkled on top; it's more about social interactions with gaming on top."

Do you think there are more Facebook gamers than there are of all three major game consoles combined? Will there be a time when social gaming is bigger than traditional gaming across the board?

Black Friday proves that gamers still love their Mario, Zelda--er, Link

Super Mario 3D Land is the fastest-selling portable Mario game in history on a device that's supposedly in hot water. If that doesn't demonstrate the power of the portly, platforming plumber, nothing will. Nintendo revealed recent sales figures of its most recently-released games, both of which are the fastest-selling in their respective franchises.

Nintendo sold over 500,000 copies of Super Mario 3D Land since its Nov. 11 release and 535,000 discs packing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword since it landed on Nov. 20. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said to USA Today that these two games alone drove sales of both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii consoles. For instance, 3DS sales tripled last week ( a 325 percent increase), compared to sales the week before the game's release. The Wii also enjoyed record Black Friday sales with more than 500,000 consoles sold.

"We know that Black Friday and that entire week is a key selling week, and it is important for products like ours to have a jump in momentum, and we were fortunate to see that," Fils-Aime told USA Today. "For us, it really was driven by unique and powerful software and what gives us confidence is that we still have more software to launch in the balance of this holiday period."

The Mario maker still has yet another Mario game set to hit the 3DS--Mario Kart 7 hits Dec. 4--which could help sustain the enormous 3DS sales. Fils-Aime did say to us that content is what will make the 3DS a success, and it looks like the 3DS has found its system-seller. The question is, will Mario be enough pull the 3DS from out of the kettle?

[Image Credit: Nintendo of America]

Did you pick up a 3DS or Super Mario 3D Land over the weekend? Do you think, based on sales like these, that the 3DS still has a chance in the portable gaming space?