In the most telling sign that Google has way too much money, they have released an 8-bit version of Google Maps for the original Nintendo just in time for April Fools' day. You can try it out here. Google went to a lot of trouble with this inserting landmarks in major cities throughout the map. The best of these is the Google HQ campus in Mountain View where they're inserted the Android and dinosaur skeleton that sit on campus. But the best part of this product though is the video they released to promote it.
The video features the NES product, coupled with those consistently unreliable cartridges which we're told to blow on to eliminate any bugs. It also features a handful of Google engineers who are completely deadpanned in their delivery talking about the product. This makes me wonder if maybe the team set to work on this was never actually told that it was a joke. Now that would be funny.
Of course you can't have a new Google Maps product without Street View.
This is a well produced and high quality spoof and I'm a better person having seen it. It's just amazing to me that Google has the time, energy, and resources to go to all this trouble. Seems like these 'jokes' get more and more elaborate every single year. But as long as Gmail is free I'm not complaining. Kudos to all that helped produce it.
Thanks to Jesse Stay for the find. More coverage here.
