Former Nintendo employees share insight into the Mario Switch teaser photo

If you were paying attention to Nintendo news just before Switch was announced, the image above with Mario might look familiar to you. The photo was shared alongside a message on social media telling fans to tune in the following day for a first look at the console. Mario is peeking behind a curtain, and it’s kind of become a meme with some even joking about how it looks like he’s in the shower.

Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang, a pair of former employees at Nintendo of America, shared some behind-the-scenes information about the shot in a recent podcast episode. They confirmed that it was a new photo led by the company’s former head of social, and a photoshoot was done in large part because there weren’t any assets that could be used. Internally, it was “controversial” and Nintendo apparently wasn’t happy due to concerns about potentially mismanaging expectations.

Kit and Krysta shared the following about the Mario Switch photo:

Krysta: This was very controversial. The person that had this idea was the former head of social. This person commissioned a photoshoot for the Mario costume character in the office… It caused some concern actually because of course, Nintendo doesn’t want to like not manage people’s expectations and this was too much in the zone of like speculation, what could it be, too much of a tease for something as big as a console reveal so it didn’t go over too well. Then of course it got memed into oblivion, and people were kind of upset about it honestly.

Kit: Here’s the thing. With these big beats and moments like this, you always need more assets than you think you do. And in this case, there was clearly no asset to pair with this news, and nobody wants to put out a tweet that has no image with it, so it’s like “Well what can we do?” There’s always some spreadsheet – here’s every single asset we need, every single sizing, every single use – and I think in that case they must have just missed out because why else otherwise would they be taking a last second picture of Mario in the shower, you know?

Krysta: People were upset because they didn’t use an official thing. I’m not saying that they did anything wrong.

It remains to be seen how Nintendo will unveiled its next console. As of now the company has only said it will make an announcement about the platform sometime during the fiscal year, which ends March 2025.

Thanks to the Kit & Krysta Podcast for the information above.