Wii U Blue and Red Game Cases

[Wraith Storm]

Does anyone know why some of the Wii U games come in red cases instead of blue?

I can't find much information online. I found a thread at Game FAQS discussing Mario Kart 8 and it seems to have been the first title to come in red. There are several other games like Super Mario 3D World and Mario Party 10 that I have seen come in both blue and red cases. It seems to be only first party titles that have this variant. All third party games are strictly blue from what I have seen.

Are the red cases maybe first production run and blue cases are subsequent production runs? I would assume there is something to it, or maybe Nintendo just got a surplus of red cases and are packaging games in them at random?

[Leo_A]

You really don't know? It's a theme thing since red is the color associated with Mario.

If there are blue case variants, it's indeed a later production run as seen when New Super Mario Bros. Wii was reprinted a couple of years ago with a white case in place of the original red.

In addition to red and blue, New Super Luigi U uses a green case and Super Mario Maker uses a yellow case. And New Super Mario Bros. U just shipped in a plain blue case unlike subsequent Wii U Mario releases.

[Wraith Storm]

Cool! Thanks for the info. I assumed there was something to it but I couldn't find any solid info on it. What you explained totally makes sense though.

Although Mario maker comes in a yellow box containing an art/idea booklet, the game itself is in a red case.

Damn... this is going to make me anal now. . So far I have been lucky and all of my Mario games are in red cases but now i'm gonna have to insure my future purchases match.

Thanks again for the info Leo_A!

[Tanooki]

They started re-packing existing titles in red too such as the various Mario titles on 3DS that first came in a white box. NSMB2 and MK7 I have in red as I got them used last year again, but when I first had them they were white.

[Leo_A]

Although Mario maker comes in a yellow box containing an art/idea booklet, the game itself is in a red case.

Are you sure?

I don't own it yet, but a search through Google Images for pictures of the contents in the Super Mario Maker box as I prepared that message seemed to show a yellow case.

Edit: I looked again and it seems as if I saw the European version.

[Ryudo]

Legend of Kay comes in a white case and M rated games in Japan come in black cases.

[PreZZ]

I bought mario maker the day it launched and it came in a red case, and 3d world came in a blue case day one too.