A gaming franchise surviving (and thriving) for nearly 40 years is super impressive, and the Mario franchise has done exactly that, reaching new audiences now with even more spinoffs in the form of a huge Hollywood movie. Mario, Luigi, and the whole gang are brilliant examples of how gaming has evolved in the last 40 years and go to show how technology has moved on, but the concept of a good game being a good game will never change – people still love the original games.

Nintendo’s Evolution From Card Games to Huge Titles

You’d be forgiven for thinking Nintendo’s rise came from early consoles through to the current generation, but this isn’t the whole story and people are often shocked to hear the Japanese gaming giants started making card games.

Hanafuda, an old game that originated in Japan, was the initial focus of Nintendo back in the 1800s (yes, you read that right) and the company eventually saw the potential of video games and pivoted to this area.

Maybe it shouldn’t surprise us, as plenty of games that are now played online and that use digital interfaces actually started hundreds of years ago. Poker has followed the same trajectory, and though it was originally played with physical cards, the digital age has changed poker, allowing people to play online through a simple interface and watch the cards fall on their screen rather than on a physical table.

Aspects of poker are different now when played online, and it is easier for players to follow the poker industry and develop a poker strategy based on other players, tips, and even YouTube channels and blogs about the game.

With over 159 million copies sold, Mario Kart is one of Nintendo’s most successful franchises. The game collects many iconic Nintendo characters—from Mario and Luigi to Link and Isabelle—and has them compete against each other in an intense karts race. Amongst the many highlights of Mario Kart are the imaginative and colorful race tracks. In what follows, we list down five of the most exciting Mario tracks ever. 

Super Mario is one exciting game that has caught the fancy of many folks for decades although many don’t know any facts about this legendary video game character. Here are some unusual facts about the mustachioed man.

The supposed last cartridge

Originally, Super Mario Bros was meant to be the last cartridge game launched for the Nintendo Entertainment System console. 

They were planning to switch to a floppy disk-based system which was a prevailing success in Japan at the time with the Famicom console. However, this was eventually not the case as the popularity of Super Mario Bros resulted in the use of cartridges for another 20 years

2019 looks like it’s going to be another year for our friendly plumber and the entire company.  Never content with the endless list of games already released, Nintendo Switch have revealed that there will be not one but two releases next year to look forward to.

The last Super Mario offering, Super Mario Odyssey in 2017 broke the 10 million sold copies mark, making it the fastest-selling title in the US and Europe. This is followed by Mario Kart 8, which sold 9.22 million copies. This last bit of news is highly interesting and relevant here because it just goes to show that spin-offs can be just as popular (if not more in some cases) than some of the main game products.

When Nintendo released Mario Kart 64 in the 1990s, it became one of the most well-known games of the past few decades. During the game, four players race each other on a variety of tracks. Each player could utilize random items on the course to throw at the others. Four different game modes existed, the Time Trial, Versus, Grand Prix and Battle options. With eight different Nintendo characters to choose from, the game revolved around each person’s favorite, including Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Toad, Yoshi, or Bowser. Gamers argued over whether which player was better and who could be the one that excelled over the others.

The game was the second installment of the Mario Kart franchise that began with Mario Kart for the Super Nintendo gaming system. If you grew up in the 1990s, you would probably remember racing your friends in Mario Kart 64. Some would tell you to stop cheating if you looked at their characters’ races in the split screen. Others would keep their mouths shut and attempt to get away with it themselves. Some people always said that Peach or Yoshi were the fastest characters, but you could make the argument for virtually any character as long as you knew how to utilize their strengths.

With the recently unveiled demo of Super Mario Odyssey wowing fans and critics alike, it’s clear that this 36-year old plumber has the capacity to mesmerise global gaming audiences.

Whilst the open-ended universes of No Man’s Sky and the yawn-inducing back stories of Mass Effect: Andromeda continue to underwhelm gamers, it’s clear that for simple retro gaming fun, it’s hard to beat good old Mario.

By now thanks to information on the internet and the fact that Mario is such an old series people know quite a lot about the main man himself and the series so we’ve done our best to come up with 17 fun facts about the Mario series which you actually might not have known. There’s certainly a few that I didn’t know. Enjoy!

The Burdeti Duo performs "Super Medley", an arrangement of Super Mario World
for guitar and piano!