New Super Mario Bros. 2 Was Almost Called “New Super Mario Bros. Gold”

Before Nintendo decided on the title of New Super Mario Bros. 2, they were considering calling it something else—New Super Mario Gold. This idea was considered for two reasons, the first being that the game’s focus is on collecting as many gold coins as possible. It has up to 1 million coins to collect.

The other reason was that the development team for 2 felt immensely pressured by the release of Super Mario 3D Land, developed by a different group, which has a lot of elements from classic Mario games in it as well. The development team for New Super Mario Bros. 2 weren’t sure they’d be able to deliver on a “classic” Mario game that would be able to outdo 3D Land.

Ultimately, the game was decided to be worthy of a “2” in the title once the team felt they’d reached the quality bar they were aiming for, and managed to include more stages than in New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS and New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 will be released on August 19th in North America.