Fun fact: Martinet was also the voice of Paarthurnax, one of the dragons in Skyrim.
Also, I can't believe that Nintendo's own tweet about this announcement got one of the facts wrong. They wrote:
Charles Martinet has been the original voice of Mario in Nintendo games for a long time, as far back as Super Mario 64.
He was actually the voice of Mario before Mario 64. His first official Mario role was in Mario Teaches Typing, which came out two years before Mario 64.
I wonder if Nintendo is considering training an AI voice model based on Martinet's recordings or something. Are they advanced enough yet to do convincing wahoos? I can't imagine another voice for Mario.
Are they advanced enough yet to do convincing wahoos?
Doubtful. Nintendo isn't even advanced enough to host a single gameplay server for any of their top multiplayer games. Charging money for access to a P2P-networked game mode is not only an insult to the players, but honestly ought to be illegal, but that's another rant for another day.
I love Nintendo, but they really seem to be afraid of technology.
I was talking about voice models, not Nintendo. Nintendo could make use of AI if they wanted to. And saying they aren't advanced enough is plain wrong. Whoever makes those decisions just isn't willing to spend their resources on proper online infrastructure.