Mario & Sonic

NFTs and esports killed the Mario & Sonic Olympic Games series

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SEGA and Nintendo’s long running Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series has come to an end. Speaking with Eurogamer, series veteran Lee Cocker explained that the International Olympics Committee left the partnership with SEGA and Nintendo in favor of new partners that focused on NFTs and esports. Believe it or not, there IS a game based on the 2024 Summer Olympic Games out right now. You just wouldn’t know it because it isn’t really being marketed and it looks like crap. Olympics Go! from developer nWay released to smart phone stores and the Epic Games Store and it features microtransactions and officially licensed “commemorative” NFTs. Whee.

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SEGA News Bits: Sonic the Hedgehog Creator Wants A True Mario Crossover

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Welcome to a new crossover special episode of the SEGA News Bits, today George and Barry talk about Sonic the Hedgehog Creator Yuji Naka’s recent interview where he said he wanted a Mario & Sonic crossover action game. I know what you are thinking, that there are already Mario & Sonic the Hedgehog crossover games in the form of Olympic titles, but that isn’t really what fans and Yuji Naka envisioned for a Mario & Sonic the Hedgehog crossover game. Tune in and let us know what your ideal Mario & Sonic crossover game would be.

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Yuji Naka wants to see a Mario and Sonic crossover action game

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We know that Mario and Sonic have had a long line of crossover Olympic titles throughout recent years, but that isn’t what Yuji Naka, one of Sonic’s creators envisioned for the duo’s cross over.

Recently Yuji Naka spoke with the Japanese website Famitsu about the origins of Mario and Sonic game, which started talks as an action game during the GameCube era when SEGA first went 3rd party. As we know today, this lead nowhere and Mario and Sonic didn’t happen until SEGA acquired the license to make Olympic video games.

Here is Yuji Naka talking about Mario and Sonic co-starring on titles based around the Olympics and the origins of the project:

“Actually, I wanted Mario [and Sonic] to appear together, so one time I went to give Miyamoto-san a presentation on how I want to create an action game which is co-starred by Mario and Sonic. It was in the GameCube days, and I took around four planners with me. It is a pity that the discussion was ‘clearly it isn’t necessary for Mario and Sonic to co-star in an action [game]’ and it didn’t become a reality, but SEGA was able to get the license for the Olympics just at that time, so in order to make the best use of the license, companion characters appeared together. A little later Sonic appeared in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. However, this too came into reality because I requested from Sakurai-san, ‘I want Sonic to appear [in Smash Bros.]’. The Olympics is a bit different from my wish, but I think it’s a good thing that children around the world are happy about them co-starring. But someday I want to realize an action [game] together with Mario. I think I’m going to give another presentation so that Takashi [Iizuka] finds the necessity [of a Mario & Sonic action game] (laughs).” – Yuji Naka

Yuji Naka wasn’t the only original Sonic the Hedgehog creator to chime in on the interview, original Sonic designer Naoto Ohshima said the following:

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Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 details released including the character roster

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Nintendo has opened the official Japanese website for Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, this was for the 3DS version of the game. The page detailed various things including the sporting events, character roster, amiibo support, and various modes.
There are a total of 14 Olympic sports included in this handheld title. This includes soccer, golf, 100m dash, 110m hurdle, long jump, javelin throw, 100m freestyle swim, archery, boxing, table tennis, beach volley, equestrian, BMX, and rhythmic gymnastic hoop. This will also include 14 extra competition events which are basically one of these with gimmicks added from the Mario & Sonic series.

Local play is only possible if each person has a copy of the game, but the game will feature ‘Download Play’ mode which will let you play with people that don’t have the game but these users will have a limited selection of characters to play as.

Talking about characters, hit the jump to see the 40 characters (not including Miis) that will be in the game.

[Via Nintendo Everything]

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Super Mario Maker’s unlockable Sonic the Hedgehog Amiibo skin

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sonic-super-mario-maker-amiiboIf you didn’t know, Super Mario Maker will allow you to use your Amiibos to unlock ‘skins’, in case you got bored of controlling a slightly overweight mustached man. The one above is the Sonic the Hedgehog skin, that looks like it was ripped from the first Sonic the Hedgehog on the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. Meaning, its actually 16-bit, yet its being used in Mario’s 8-bit NES style game. Its a shame, I’m actually a fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog‘s 8-bit look.

But what do you guys think of this unlockable? Are any of you guys picking Super Mario Maker when it comes out this September? Hit the jump to see Sonic in action after the jump.

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Nintendo pre-E3 Digital Event: Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games trailer

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Nintendo’s Digital Event at E3 2015 has wrapped, and on the SGEA side of things we have a new trailer for the upcoming Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games title. The new trailer showcases summer sports that will be included in both Wii U and 3DS titles, though those hoping for any real surprises or hints at a story mode or party mode will be disappointed. Hopefully we learn more about the game soon, personally I’d like to see a beefed up London Party Mode (obviously set in Rio) and I think SEGA really needs to include some Samba de Amigo characters given the game’s setting.

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Feast your eyes on these Mario & Sonic 2014 and Sonic Lost World screens

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Via Nintendo’s press site comes a ton of new screens from Sonic Lost World for Wii U and 3DS as well as Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games for Wii U. Seen in the screens are the stages SEGA’s Aaron Webber revealed on IGN late last week. However, it is great to see them nice and crisp in the new screens. Mario & Sonic reveals… not as much. However, it does give a good look at our first HD entry to the series.

After the break, enough screens to make your head spin!

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Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games Trailer

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It’s Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games… What a mouthful!
If there is something I don’t think anyone could fault Sega for, it’s their very impressive CGI and Mario/Sonic/London as I’m now calling it does not disappoint on the CGI front!

A great trailer and hopefully a great game! Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games will release for the Nintendo Wii on November 15th in North America, November 18th in Europe and the DS version will release Febuary 2012.

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Mario & Sonic platformer never happened due to internal disagreement

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When we where kids, growing up in the 16-bit era, we always took sides with either Sonic or Mario. But deep down inside, we always wanted to see them do a game together, an awesome platformer. Then SEGA announced Mario & Sonic Olympic series, making people angry. But why not make a platformer game?

“Prior to this project there has always been a discussion between Nintendo and Sega about bringing Sonic and Mario together somehow. But every time we talked about it, there was an issue as to exactly how we could achieve that.

These characters come from two totally different backgrounds, and have completely different worlds. If you do any kind of collaboration, you can’t just get them to run on one of the Sonic stages or vice versa. You have to create something from scratch, a neutral location. Nintendo and SEGA never managed to agree on just where or what kind of universe we could set a Mario and Sonic adventure in.

Then, some time ago, SEGA secured a license to create games based on the Olympics. At that point I came up with the idea of having Mario and Sonic compete with each other in the Olympic games setting. We proposed that idea to Nintendo and they were really positive and interested in the idea, so that is where we started building it into a concrete game proposal.” – Osamu Ohash, Producer.

Very interesting, minigames seem to be the easiest way to cash in on the brand names.

[Source: Spong]

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