Happy birthday, Super Mario! Have a Mario Maker.
On Sept. 13, 1985,聽Super Mario Bros.聽was released in Japan on the Famicom, the Japanese version Nintendo.
The game ushered in the era of play-at-home games, making Mario one of the most iconic characters and entertainment brands in the world.
The series is in the Guinness Book of Records as one of the top two of all time. It now boasts global sales of over 40 million units, according to Nintendo.
Mario had previously appeared in the arcade games Donkey Kong聽and聽Mario Bros, but they didn鈥檛 provoke聽much interest.
In Super Mario Bros., the Italian plumber achieved icon status and contributed significantly to making video games commonplace in homes around the world 鈥撀爎eversing the video game crash of the early '80s,
鈥淲丑别苍 Super Mario Bros. hit shelves, video games were in dire straits. Revenues were down nearly 97% 鈥撀爁rom $3.2 billion in 1983 to $100 million in 1985. Atari, which not long before had been the fastest growing company in U.S. history at the time, had filed for bankruptcy. And mall arcades were moving past their heyday,鈥� 聽the magazine recalls. 聽
Super Mario Bros. reinvented video games, say fans. "Mario introduced a style of imaginative and delightful game play, which really hasn鈥檛 changed all that much in the three decades it has been out there,鈥� John Taylor, managing director at Arcadia Investment Corp., . "You could argue that the basic design is like the basic design for Monopoly. It doesn鈥檛 change 鈥撀燼nd yet people keep playing and playing. There鈥檚 something about the little surprises. There鈥檚 something about the quirky music. There鈥檚 something about the overall experience."
To mark the anniversary, this week, Nintendo released its newest Mario game, .
Since its release in 1985, gaming has evolved as a tool for both entertainment and learning. In fact, the US Department of Education, seeing the influence video games have on young people, is seeking ways to incorporate games into schools.
"Now there is an opportunity to see games as solving real educational problems," said Erik Martin, of Games for Learning,聽. "Video games can really provide formative, quality assessment about how a kid tackles a problem and how they fail and overcome the challenges around a certain context a game provides them."
