Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 20 (Patreon)

Welcome, everyone, to the 20th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.  

Today, I will examine how future Mario games may be named as a consequence of Nintendo seemingly not wanting to reuse acronyms.

Abbreviation Saturation

Today's issue, due to the text-based and speculative nature of the content within, does not include any images. Regular image-centric articles will resume tomorrow. 

Mario franchise games are often, due to their abundance and names that contain repetitive elements, referred to by their acronyms (although some dictionaries note that the proper term for abbreviations where each letter is pronounced individually is "initialism", the consensus is that "acronym" is an appropriate word to use). We all know that "SMB" stands for "Super Mario Bros." or "SMO" stands for "Super Mario Odyssey".

The question is, how exactly is it that we can be so sure about these acronyms? Certainly with hundreds of games in the franchise, many of which start with "Super Mario", there is bound to be more than one that would put a word that also starts with "B" after, resulting in also having the acronym "SMB"?

The answer is brand management. Nintendo is well aware that players will be referring to their games by acronyms, as that happens to nearly all games with titles that are more than one word long. Thus, in order to preempt any confusion, the naming process for Mario games includes a requirement for the resulting acronym to be unique (there are exceptions to this, as I will show below, but this concern appears to be a high priority for Nintendo).

Let us examine all possible three-letter abbreviations starting with "Super Mario" to see just how well Nintendo has managed this so far:

SMA: Super Mario Advance
SMB: Super Mario Bros.
(SMC: Super Mario Collection (the Japanese name for Super Mario All-Stars, counted here for completion))
SMG: Super Mario Galaxy
SMK: Super Mario Kart
SML: Super Mario Land
SMM: Super Mario Maker
SMO: Super Mario Odyssey
SMP: Super Mario Party
SMR: Super Mario Run
SMS: Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Strikers
SMW: Super Mario World

along with all other acronyms starting with "Super Mario" that are not the three-letter acronyms with numbers attached (such as SMB3 for Super Mario Bros. 3):

SM3DL: Super Mario 3D Land
SM3DW: Super Mario 3D World
SM64: Super Mario 64
SM64DS: Super Mario 64 DS
SMAS: Super Mario All-Stars
SMBDX: Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
SMRPG: Super Mario RPG

As we can see, the lack of repeated three-letter abbreviations is impressive, with the only real infraction coming from Super Mario Strikers, which was not even named that in all regions (being instead called Mario Smash Football in Europe and Australia). It seems that this has been one of the rules for naming Mario games for the vast majority of the series' lifespan.

Of course, there are factors that make this feat of acronym planning less impressive. Many major Mario games are direct sequels, allowing them to reuse a three-letter acronym by adding a number at the end. The biggest examples here are SMB2/SMB3, the sequels to Super Mario Bros., and SMG2, the sequel to Super Mario Galaxy. Based off this, it is very likely that if Super Mario Odyssey is to receive a sequel on the Nintendo Switch, it will be named Super Mario Odyssey 2.

The other factor is that we are only looking at "Super Mario" games, not "Mario" games in general. Those are, due to representing different genres and not all being developed by Nintendo, not under such strict rules, which allows some of them, especially the shorter-named ones, to share acronyms (such as Mario Party and Mario's Picross both being MP).
Even with them, it seems to be at least a partial priority: note how SPP, SMP, SPM, SMM, MSP, SMS and MSS all exist but have subtly different acronyms so none of them infringes upon the other. (Super Princess Peach, Super Mario Party, Super Paper Mario, Super Mario Maker, Mario's Super Picross, Super Mario Sunshine, Mario Super Sluggers).

Finally, a trick Nintendo used to open up a new "acronym space" for their mainline Mario games is the New Super Mario Bros. series, allowing them to have more "SMB" games by prefixing them with an N, and possibly, in the future, doing that with other three-letter acronyms.

With all this under consideration, let us think about the future. Nintendo will likely want to continue creating new titles for Mario games, and it is the three-word ones that start with "Super Mario" that carry the most prestige due to being associated with many of the most highly-acclaimed games in the series.

Let us look at the three-letter acronyms Nintendo has not yet used (leaving out SMC due to it being used in Japan for Super Mario All-Stars; as a Japanese company, I believe Nintendo would view this one as "taken" already). They are:

SMD, SME, SMF, SMH, SMI, SMJ, SMN, SMQ, SMT, SMU, SMV, SMX, SMY, SMZ

We can speculate on what kinds of names we can expect based on these acronyms. Of course, the chances of any of this happening very soon are low, as Nintendo managed to only use up 12 of the alphabet's 26 letters since the very first Super Mario game 34 years ago; but if the trend continues, it would not be unreasonable to expect most of these to be taken in another 30 years from now.

Ones that to me seem very likely are names that imply some kind of adventure, thus, I predict "Super Mario Journey" for SMJ and "Super Mario Quest" for SMQ; it is rather odd the latter has not been taken already given how many of Mario's adventures could be described as quests. 

Based on the increasing scope of Super Mario Land, World, and Galaxy, one that not just I but many other Mario enthusiasts have long predicted is "Super Mario Universe" for SMU. 

One that has become very likely with the rebranding of the Mario Party series into Super Mario Party is the same happening to other Mario sub-series, thus, "Super Mario Tennis" for SMT (interestingly, there is already a "Super Mario Tennis" minigame in Mario Tennis Open). I can also imagine a Strikers revival as "Super Mario Football" for SMF. 

Finally, here are names that seem reasonable to me but I have no particular justification for: "Super Mario Versus" for SMV, "Super Mario Crossover" for SMX, "Super Mario & Yoshi" for SMY (after existing games like Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Mario & Wario, Mario & Luigi etc.), "Super Mario Dimentions" for SMD, and possibly a new sports series called "Super Mario Handball" for SMH (or a mobile game called "Super Mario Heroes").

If you have any predictions for future Mario game names, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below! I will add suggestions to the article, as well. Reader Leia has suggested "Super Mario Quiz" for SMQ and "Super Mario Infinity" for SMI; both rather plausible given the recent surge in mobile games and crossovers.

This concludes today's issue. Thank you very much for reading.