Some interesting new titbits on the history of Mario come to light in the latest Iwata Asks...

In the latest Iwata Asks conducted to the celebrate the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., the Nintendo president uncovered some interesting facts about the franchise's recent history.

In an interview with several key Mario developers, it was revealed that 2006's DS smash New Super Mario Bros. was originally conceived as Super Mario Advance 5. The Super Mario Advance series in general was of personal significance to Iwata-san, who first suggested the idea to Shigeru Miyamoto after noticing a distinct lack of Mario titles on the Game Boy Advance when he first came into an executive position at the company.

Nintendo EAD Tokyo's Yoshiaki Koizumi also offered some fascinating tales. Back in the prototype stages of Super Mario 64, director Shigeru Miyamoto would turn up in the office in the early hours of the morning and 'demonstrate' to his team how exactly he wanted Mario to move in the game. This reached a point where Miyamoto-san "completely sprawled out" over a desk and performed 'swimming motions'. The sheer bizarreness of the moment led Koizumi to think "This is the work of a true director."

You can read the full transcript of this Iwata Asks over here.