To celebrate the beginning of a long-term collaboration between the two brands, TAG Heuer and Nintendo have created a limited-edition smartwatch featuring Nintendo’s most famous character: the energetic Mushroom Kingdom hero, Mario!
When TAG Heuer and Super Mario join forces, you can bet the result is a timepiece that adds new excitement to both the watchmaking and gaming worlds and which fans of the two brands will be desperate to get their hands on! Super Mario meets the TAG Heuer Connected. The result? A watch that stands out and brings new creativity and daring style to the avant-garde watchmaker’s collections. The intrepid, iconic hero comes to life in this luxury smartwatch that combines sport, technology and elegance in one dynamic package. In this collaboration, the TAG Heuer Connected is offering wearers a fun new way to get more active, feeling the thrill of achieving goals throughout the day.
Generations of gamers have grown up with Super Mario, with more than 370 million Super Mario games sold worldwide since 1985. Since the first Super Mario Bros. game launched in Japan in 1985, Super Mario – with his red cap and blue overalls – has become recognised the world over. “The inspiration for this collaboration came from our desire to gamify and bring excitement to our new wellness application and Super Mario instantly came to our minds,” says Frédéric Arnault, CEO of TAG Heuer. “And it’s not just his international and intergenerational appeal that clinched it. Mario is the ultimate super-active character whose perseverance and tenacity get him out of every situation. The new hero watch face gives life to this iconic character and encourages users to team up with Mario to get out there and be more active. The TAG Heuer Connected is the perfect companion for connected life and every active person’s best friend. With this Super Mario limited-edition smartwatch, they can add a bit of fun and originality to their activities and wellness.”
Thanks to the TAG Heuer Connected, action is at the heart of this TAG Heuer x Super Mario collaboration. This brand-new digital creation, combining luxury and sport with fun features along the way, encourages the wearer to get out and about and step up their physical activity with Mario, to be rewarded by the pleasure and satisfaction of marking their progress. Mario himself is always on the move, whether he’s running and jumping, or playing sports like golf and tennis. His upbeat and active personality will encourage wearers of this smartwatch to enjoy moving too. With its watchface, which becomes livelier and more animated the more the wearer is active, this edition of the TAG Heuer Connected changes as its user makes progress, for a fun and motivating way of keeping active throughout the day. The animations are based on the gamification rewards system: Mario greets you with a welcoming salute in the morning and as the day progresses and you rack up your step count, you unlock rewards at each stage of your daily target – 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% – a different animation plays out on the dial. These take the form of Super Mario’s famous objects: at 3 o’clock the Super Mushroom that makes Mario grow, at 6 o’clock the Pipe that allows him to travel fast, and at 9 o’clock the Super Star that makes him invincible lights up! And when you reach 100% of your daily step count target, Mario climbs the Goal Pole, another iconic feature of the video game. The idea is inspired by the famous “easter egg” concept that all gamers know very well, which consists of hiding features and surprises as a bonus in video games.
The interface has been completely redesigned in the Super Mario colours. For this limited edition, TAG Heuer’s famous Connected watchfaces have been reinterpreted with Super Mario special versions, four dials revisited to include special details associated with Super Mario. The Timekeeping watchface was reskinned using the retro elements from the 1985 version of Super Mario Bros. with Mario, all in pixels. Also, two versions of the Heuer 02 watchface were created exclusively for this edition: a fun rendition using Super Mario’s iconic red and blue colours, and a more classic one with subtle touches of Super Mario’s red cap. Lastly, the Orbital watchface had its neural network replaced by Super Mario’s iconic elements rotating in a beautiful and mesmerizing movement. On the exterior as well, the TAG Heuer Connected Limited Edition was designed with exclusive and subtle references that will delight Super Mario fans. The bezel graduation, push buttons and crown logo were filled with Super Mario’s famous red cap’s lacquered colour, making the watch instantly stand out from the core collection. The bezel features three iconic symbols at the three, six, and nine o’clock positions, in a nod to the Super Mario objects included in the dial animations that the user can unlock and discover only when achieving goals throughout the day.
Developed in-house, the TAG Heuer Sport app provides detailed feedback on the wearer’s performance in a variety of activities including running, swimming, cycling, walking, and physical fitness. Meanwhile, golfers will love the new game strategy enhancement functionality recently added to the TAG Heuer Golf app. Lastly, the new Wellness function enables users to stay in shape and provides feedback on changes in their biometric data during their daily exercise.
