Peach’s dress the reason for her not being playable in new Mario Wii

In the upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii, up to four players can play controlling one of four characters — Mario, Luigi, and two different colored Toads. 

Why two toads instead of what might seem like the obvious choice, Princess Peach? Creator Shigeru Miyamoto answered this question (asked by Wired Game|Life’s Tracey John), and the answer was… surprising. Turns out, you can blame her signature pink dress.

“Originally, I thought it would be nice if we could have Princess Peach in there as a playable character,” he said through a translator, “but in fact, the Toad characters have a physical that’s a little bit closer to Mario and Luigi. In particular, if we had one character ou of the four that wore a dress, we would have to have special processing and programming to handle how the skirt is handled within the gameplay.”

Miyamoto-san, 1988 called and wants to know if you’d like to borrow its copy of Super Mario Bros. 2 for the NES. I kid, of course. But I do wish I could get some more Peach action in our Mario games. There’s always New Super Mario Bros. Wii 2.