That time when Nintendo licensed Mario to make absolutely terrible computer games

It is Nintendo’s mascot, and it is impossible to imagine it outside of Switch, Nintendo DS or GameCube, but for a while, the Japanese company decided that its character could also be exported to other platforms. Just look at the ‘Super Mario Bros’ from NES that ended up on Atari, Spectrum, Armstrad and Commodore 64 in versions that were frankly worse but unique, as seen. But the big N not only licensed games: in addition, Mario himself starred in exclusive adventures for PC and CD-i. And the results were disastrous.

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Mario teaches you

It was 1993, and educational games were a business in themselves, even though it’s hard to believe now. That’s why Nintendo America decided that their characters could appear in a few games, just to see what happened. Thus, The Software Toolworks first released ‘Mario is missing!’, a kind of ‘Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?’ in which Miyamoto had no say. In Nintendo Japan, it didn’t sit well because they believed it could be confused with a “real” game of the character.

The idea was that this ‘Mario is missing!’, starring Luigi, would not pose any kind of challenge and was intended, as is, for young children. It was a relative success, and it started a new series of games that, after going through the PC, Nintendo brought to its own consoles: ‘Mario’s time machine’ taught about different periods of history, ‘Mario’s Early Years’ were three games for preschoolers, ‘Mario Teaches Typing’ was designed to learn typing (and was a resounding success)…

‘Mario’s Game Gallery’ was already far from what Nintendo wanted to do with the character, and it was a compilation of classic board games (checkers, dominoes, etc.) with the excuse of having beloved characters there. Nobody liked it too much, and the Japanese company began to distance itself from this type of concessions. It was 1995 and Mario stopped appearing in formats other than Nintendo’s own.

Helped, of course, the reception of the live-action movie ‘Super Mario Bros’: no matter how much money they could make, if the character wasn’t treated correctly, what was the point? Bread for today and hunger for tomorrow. Another game would still come, this time for the failed Phillips CD-i console (which you may know from the Zelda games that became a meme): the infamous ‘Hotel Mario’.

Although apparently Miyamoto and company ended up approving this game, shortly after, and due to the console’s poor success, two others were canceled: ‘Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds’, which was going to be a platformer in the style of the classic saga, and ‘Mario Takes America’, which, luckily, we never got to see. So you know: the next time you control the Italian plumber, think that, as bad as the game may be… it could always have been worse. Mamma mia!

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