Growing up playing playing Super Mario Bros. for the original NES, I always wondered if there were other kids in the world that loved Mario as much I did. I remember dressing up like Mario with a pair of old coveralls and a red hat I had, pretending I had a star and could knock my friends off the screen, and even jumping on a turtle once, sad right! Of course, back then we didn’t have G4 or the internet to know the answer to my question.

It turns out that my fanboyism, as it was later defined, was not unique, that in fact there were more boys as sick with severe Mario obsessive compulsive disorder like me.

Take for example: this old YouTube video of the now famous Super Jesse Mario, Jesse Mario turned out to be the biggest Mario fan in American! He was even recognized by the one and only Nintendo of America with such title and here is the video to prove it.

Today, as an overgrown boy, I must admit that after reading Super Jesse Mario’s The Failure of Fanboyism article; I reflect back to my childhood and I fully disagree with his analysis and conclusion that fanboyism is a waste of time… you see, the best time in my childhood revolved around the fact that me and my friends got together to finish the last level of Super Mario Bros., shooting ducks in Duck Hunt, and walking 3 or 4 miles to a friend’s house to exchange NES games for a week or two.

I can honestly say that I cherish my childhood, and that I’m a happy man because I had a childhood filled with video games, I do agree with his assessment on what Nintendo has become and how it has turned their back on us, the hardcore gamers, to appeal to the iPod buyers.. you know, the casual gamer.

From Jesse Salazar 3rd aka “Super Jesse Mario” Fanboys, and fanboyism, is a waste of time.

See, here’s what happened to me after this. I used to be hardcore “Nintendo is the best” and could defend them to the death, and win a conversation regardless of what you would say, and this was during the time of Gamecube, imagine now! But, then I got my tax return money, and saw how great Bluray movies look, bought a PS3, and borrowed my friend’s Xbox 360, only to realize that I love those systems as much as the Wii, and played them a lot more.

I became less and less attached to my Nintendo and Mario collection, and as life began to take over (bills, my wife, my son, etc) I realized I couldn’t just keep walking into hot topic and spend 200 bucks on Mario clothes. No, I needed to take a step back, stop the nonsense, and think about how to manage my money. I would say I have spent at least 10,000-20,000 bucks in my life time on Nintendo based products, and this doesn’t even include what my parents spent when they bought me those Pokemon cards back in the day! I look back now, and realize one important fact:

My hard-earned money was just wasted on the best salesmen of our time: the videogame industry.

Think about it, not since religion has something become such a dedication, such a banked marketing ploy. Actually, we treat Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft as gods, in a way, and they don’t deserve it. Let me tell you kids, from a business perspective, these companies don’t care about you specifically, they care about what your age group says on average, and only if that group makes up a majority of their buyers. You are basically each companies stockholders, but you, my friends, have become the minority holder in all three companies.

Nintendo is all about the “Casual” gamer, aka everyone in your family but you. Why? Because when they were all about you, when they were giving us fire emblem, Metroid prime, etc, we turned our back on them and said “no, your Gamecube is lame because of X”. So they repackaged that Gamecube and sold it to the people buying iPods while they drink their Starbucks. If you don’t believe that the Wii really is “two Gamecubes duct-taped together”, look at the specs for a Wii, and notice how the graphics it’s putting out is “almost” better than Xbox. That means it couldn’t run Halo (which I was addicted to at one point, when I had an Xbox).

Read his full article here.

So what are your thoughts? Do you feel fanboyism is a waste of time?

Discuss it at the forums!