The observant lads at Tendo Box have discovered that Mario-Net.net has been registered...by the Japanese company Marionette, Inc. So far, this firm doesn't seem to be related to Nintendo in any way, and NOA (which registers all of Nintendo's web domains as far as we know) has stayed away from Japanese pseudonyms to this date. Most of their fake registration aliases are obvious or just plain silly...

Going to Mario-Net.net reveals a Japanese beauty salon's website, and again, there are apparently no Nintendo references. It's possible that Marionette, Inc. consider "Mario-Net" to be an approximate pronunciation of their name, or maybe just a clever web address. At any rate, we currently have no indications that this domain registration is linked to Nintendo's "Marionette" project, though it's at least very interesting and funny.

Oh, and thanks to Chase Espy for giving us the heads-up on this story!