"You don't have to be a gamer to know who Mario of Super Mario Bros. fame is. The plumber's presence has permeated popular culture since the Nintendo video game's release in Japan on September 13, 1985. It reached the United States about a month later. Ahead of the game's big 40th anniversary, Nintendo is hosting a Nintendo Direct live stream event today (Friday, September 12) at 9 a.m. ET. It's expected to last around an hour."
"In 1977 Mario's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, was hired by Nintendo when he was 24 years old, having recently finished a degree in industrial design, as the New Yorker reported. He started out working in the planning department. After a game called Radar Scope failed to be a commercial success, he was tasked with creating a new one. Miyamoto wanted to use the characters from the popular comic Popeye, but when Nintendo could not secure the rights, he was forced to get creative."
"Instead Miyamoto came up with characters of his own. His final product was called Donkey Kong, which was released in 1981. Players were transformed into the avatar of Jumpman, who was on a mission to get his girlfriend back from his pet gorilla. Eventually, Jumpman would evolve into the Mario that fans know and love today. Nintendo executives in America were skeptical of Miyamoto's platform game."
Mario became a global cultural icon after Super Mario Bros. debuted in Japan on September 13, 1985, and reached the United States about a month later. Nintendo scheduled a Nintendo Direct live stream for September 12 at 9 a.m. ET ahead of the 40th anniversary, with an expected runtime of about an hour. Shigeru Miyamoto joined Nintendo in 1977 after studying industrial design and created Donkey Kong in 1981 when plans to use Popeye characters failed. Donkey Kong introduced Jumpman, who later became Mario, and American executives nicknamed the character Mario after their landlord. Super Mario Bros. helped revive a struggling video game industry.
Read at Fast Company
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]