'Super Mario Bros.' was released in 1985

The game was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka and published by Nintendo in Japan and North America in 1985. It’s seen as a landmark in the history of video games and minted the Mario character as a pop culture icon.

A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. sold for $3M, making it the most valuable video game cartridge ever auctioned.

The design changed video games forever

Miyamoto’s direction and Kondo’s sound showed younger generations the potential of video games, inspiring a more sophisticated form that moved far beyond the one-dimensional entertainment of the arcade era.

The video game Mario Bros. was a spin-off of the wildly popular Donkey Kong, another Nintendo title that featured a carpenter named Mario.

1993's 'Super Mario Bros.,' the first live-action feature film based on a video game, was a massive commercial flop.

Mario's archnemesis hosted a children's show in the 1980s

"Super Mario Bros." grew so popular in the '80s, even King Koopa, the video game's villain, had his own television show, though it's been all but erased from TV history. There's good reason for that: It was a bizarre enterprise, featuring '30s cartoons, a grumpy stand-up comedian, and cheap production.

Nintendo began in 1889 as a playing card company

As a leading video game publisher, Nintendo has contributed to expanding the prevalence of handheld and console technologies for over a century. It has also developed franchise mascots that have appeared in other media, including Mario and Sonic.

How the inventor of Mario designs games

Shigeru Miyamoto has created some of the most iconic video games in history, from Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong to The Legend of Zelda. The game producer boils down his creative philosophy to three basic principles: story, simplicity, and...

The game turned Mario into a pop culture icon

The character has appeared in over 200 games and has had his own movies, television shows, and other kinds of entertainment.

In 2021, someone paid $2M for an unopened 'Super Mario Bros.'

The collectibles site Rally announced in 2021 that an unopened "Super Mario Bros." cartridge sold for $2M. That's the highest price ever paid for a video game.

Most of the 'Super Mario Bros.' sequel was borrowed from a preexisting Nintendo game

Nintendo was eager to create a sequel following the success of "Super Mario Bros.," but the original "Super Mario Bros. 2," released in Japan, proved too difficult. Crunched for time, the company used the bones of a preexisting game, "Doki Doki Panic," and inserted elements from Mario's world for the US release of "Super Mario Bros. 2," making for a follow-up that was drastically different from its predecessor.

‘Super Mario Bros.’ was influenced by ‘Alice in Wonderland’

In 1985’s “Super Mario Bros.,” Mario and Luigi grow larger—becoming “Super Mario Bros.”—if they ingested mushrooms. “...if you think of stories like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and other types of fairy tales, mushrooms always seem to have a mysterious power, and so we thought the mushroom would be a good symbol for why they get it and get big,” Miyamoto told NPR in 2015.

Nintendo developed the character as its technology improved

Nintendo developed the Mario character as video game technology became more sophisticated. In 1991, Charles Martinet began playing Mario at trade shows and then voiced the character for 1996’s “Super Mario 64,” which included the now-classic catchphrase, “It’s a-me, Mario!”

'Super Mario Bros.' teaches players its rules as they go

Rather than constantly climbing up the screen from platform to platform like “Donkey Kong,” “Super Mario Bros.” moves from left to right. In anticipation of gamers’ confusion with the new style, Miyamoto designed the first level as a walk-through, allowing players to learn the rules without reading a manual.

The game’s theme was the first video game composition added to the Library of Congress

Koji Kondo’s “Ground Theme,” the opening music for “Super Mario Bros.” was added to the National Recording Registry in 2023. “Having this music preserved alongside so many other classic songs is such a great honor,” Kondo said. “It's actually a little bit difficult to believe.”

Listen to the evolution of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. theme, 'Ground Theme.'

Nintendo's Mario was named after the landlord of the company's American headquarters.

The levels for 'Super Mario Bros.' were designed by hand

Miyamoto and codesigner Takashi Tezuka sketched the world of the game—called Mushroom Kingdom—by hand before handing it off to developers. In the interview below, they show off some of those original illustrations.

'Games That Weren't' preserves lost video game history

Since 1999, this large, online, nonprofit archive has saved the stories of cancelled and unreleased video games. See prototypes, developer history, and assets for various computers and consoles of all ages, including gems like Cartoon Network's "Toon Jam!"

‘Donkey Kong’ was based on the ‘Popeye’ franchise

Nintendo pursued the “Popeye” franchise in the early 1980s, hoping that developing an arcade game for the popular character would result in a hit. The bid failed, but Nintendo still used “Popeye” as the model for 1981’s “Donkey Kong.”

Atari buried hundreds of thousands of video games in the New Mexico desert

The video game industry crashed in 1983, leaving the company with an enormous inventory. Looking to offload the excess, the company secretly had 800,000 cartridges buried in the desert in Alamogordo, New Mexico. For decades, the story was believed to be an urban legend, but documentary filmmakers pursued the story and, in 2014, unearthed the games.

Atari's 'Pong', VCRs, and CD players all launched at CES

This roundup highlights major tech milestones at CES, including the launch of the Nintendo NES in 1985, the DVD in 1996, and the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift in 2013.

'Stadium Events' is one of the rarest Nintendo games

Nvidia pioneered the GPU industry via its origins as a video game company

From the mid-1990s to early 2000s, Nvidia carved out a niche as a maker of semiconductor chips specially designed for the video game industry. Nvidia broke through the competition to seal deals with TSMC and Microsoft, and popularized the term "graphics processing unit," aka GPU.

'Pac-Man' was the rare early video game aimed at both men and women

The early arcade games were mainly aimed at boys and young men, with a focus on sports and violence. Toru Iwatani was interested in appealing to a wider audience and created "Pac-Man," released in Japan in 1980.

Koji Kondo composed the game's iconic soundtrack with a limited palette of sounds

The game's soundtrack and effects were limited by the Nintendo Entertainment System's 8-bit hardware, which had significantly fewer sounds than a typical synthesizer. That didn't stop Kondo from writing some of the most recognizable video game music in history.

Video games are helping to preserve cultural heritage sites, further archaeological study

When Carmen Sandiego swept onto the video game scene in 1985, the deluxe version of the game included historic photographs from National Geographic and music from the Smithsonian. Read this article to learn about the overlap between gaming and ancient architecture.

During a 2013 speed run of 'Super Mario 64,' the protagonist was inexplicably warped up to a new location—a glitch that would later be attributed to a cosmic ray flipping a bit within a byte responsible for tracking Mario's height.

Tetris was launched in the US at Summer CES 1988

Tetris first appeared in the US at the 1988 Summer CES, where Henk Rogers—who would later publish and market the game—first encountered it. This interview revisits that moment, with creator Alexey Pajitnov and Rogers reflecting on how the game gained global recognition.

Famicom was the predecessor to the NES

Before the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in the US, Nintendo released a similar console in Japan with some interesting differences, including a Delorean-like exterior and a built-in microphone for karaoke.

Disney was saved by 'Cinderella,' which brought the company out of debt

Producing war propaganda and training films helped the company towards solvency, but the military content wasn't a cure-all. Disney wasn't in the clear until 1950's "Cinderella," a much-needed hit. The movie's success was largely due to the return of the company's best writers and the work of Mary Blair, a watercolor artist who brought a more whimsical style to the film.

What killed the Disney Renaissance

Disney aficionados consider the late 1980s and 1990s to be the Disney Renaissance, a period that found the House of Mouse returning to its roots: animated musicals aimed at children and their families. This in-depth video essay argues that the end of the company’s most popular period was caused by shortsighted business decisions and changing technologies.

A 1973 ad is credited with accelerating the Super Bowl advertising craze

The Super Bowl’s history as an advertising phenomenon began in earnest during the 1970s. In 1973, for instance, Joe Namath and Farrah Fawcett starred in Noxzema’s “Cream Your Face” ad, which Smithsonian Magazine says helped establish the game “as an event for advertisers.” Read this article to learn more about how the Super Bowl became advertising’s, well, Super Bowl.

Steve Jobs changed the world with Apple and Pixar

The devices Jobs introduced during his time at Apple, including the iPad and iPhone, were imitated by competitors, ultimately helping to create the numerous options consumers have today. In addition to leading Apple, Jobs also helped turn Pixar and the software startup NeXT into success stories.

Steve Jobs saved a nearly bankrupt Apple

Apple nearly went bankrupt in 1997, when the tech company had only three months of operational cash left. Apple's board ousted cofounder Steve Jobs in 1985, but he was brought back as interim CEO to revive the company when Apple purchased Jobs' company, NeXT.

In 1984, Apple ran an award-winning Super Bowl commercial

Directed by Ridley Scott and a winner at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the clip features a heroine flinging a sledgehammer at a Big Brother-style figure delivering a speech. As the screen shatters, a voiceover proclaims that Apple's release of the Macintosh will ensure, "1984 won't be like '1984.'"

Apple’s '1984' ad aired once during the game and permanently shaped their advertising

During Super Bowl XVIII, Apple aired its dystopian “1984” commercial once to a mass audience, introducing the Macintosh and positioning Apple as a challenger to IBM’s dominance in personal computing.