Nintendo has revealed a new physical product, making the Talking Flower from Super Mario Bros. Wonder into something you can plonk on your sidetable and have quip away at you all day, every day (unless you tell it to stop).
Launching on 12th March, the Talking Flower is now available to pre-order from Nintendo and retail partners, priced at £24.99 / $34.99.
The Talking Flower will spout out somewhat random quips throughout the day, set by default to say something ever 30 minutes, and able to be manually triggered with a press of the Talk Button. It’s just about smart enough to be able to announce the hour (but will sometimes get it wrong and then correct itself, which is actually marginally more intelligent than the self-assured ChatGPT). It can also comment on the time of day and temperature, and will sometimes play background music from the game (you can then mash the Talk Button and it’ll shout and yelp to match the music).
Thankfully, you can get it to shut up. Hold the Talk Button for two seconds and it will halt its chit chat, and you can set a sleep schedule so that it doesn’t disturb you. It also has support for English, German, French, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin America), Italian, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, Chinese and Korean localisation.
It’s another thoroughly odd little bit of Nintendo merch, to go alongside their Alarmo alarm clock from a couple years ago.
Chances are most people will stick with just playing the game. Super Mario Bros. Wonder was a real highlight for the Nintendo Switch, bringing a renewed sense of fun and imagination to the 2D side-scrolling platformer, and Nintendo are now expanding it for Nintendo Switch 2 with a Switch 2 Edition and Bellabel Park add-on. They just delved into the various multiplayer modes and added challenges that will be making their way into the game on Switch 2 when it launches in March, and you can read all about that here.
