Did you like the Mario & Sonic Olympic games? We have some news that may surprise you.
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games initially released on the Wii all the way back in 2007. As documented in this Iwata Asks, Nintendo and Sega had been talking about making a game with Mario and Sonic for some time already.
Sega announced they would leave the game console business in 2001, and then fostered new relations with their former competitors as a new third party developer and publisher. However, neither Nintendo nor Sega came up with an idea for a crossover for the two characters in those six years.
Sega then acquired the license for the Olympics, and contacted Nintendo to bring the three franchises together. So, because Sega and Nintendo both were not able to come up with an original crossover idea of their own, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games is the first time Mario and Sonic actually met in a video game.
The last game in this year franchise was Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, released in 2019 on the Nintendo Switch, and also on arcades. The franchise is now conspicuous in its absence, with this being the second Olympics that didn’t see a new game. People certainly took notice of this year’s ongoing Paris Olympics compared to the Beijing Olympics in 2022. But now the question arises: what happened to these games?
One Lee Cocker suddenly emerged on Twitter to share his insight. He said:
“For the people that are asking there will be no @MarioSonicGames for @Paris2024 the franchise finished with #MarioAndSonic at the #OlympicGames @Tokyo2020
I know because I worked on all the games in the franchise. #Olympics #PARIS2024 #videogames #gaming #esports #Nintendo #Sega”
Cocker then shared various pictures as evidence to prove that he had worked with Sega, Nintendo, and the International Olympics Committee. GoNintendo did their own research and believe that Cocker really was involved in the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games franchise.
Cocker then shared a follow up on what happened since then, again on Twitter:
“FYI the Olympic Video game license is currently with @nWayGames they have released two #OlympicGames titles Olympic Games Jam for the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games https://olympicgamesjam.nwayplay.com and Olympics Go! for @Paris2024 https://olympicsgo.nway.com”
We did some checking on our own, and confirmed that nWay is making these Olympics Games. They’re also better known for producing Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, and Power Rangers: Legacy Wars. They are also involved in NFTs as well as mobile. You can see a news report on their Olympics Paris 2024 NFTs here.
A bit unceremonious end to the franchise if true, as Sega and Nintendo had not even told their fans that that was how it was going to turn out. Perhaps there will be a different Mario and Sonic game in the future, and we do mean one that isn’t Super Smash Bros. We’re not sure how we haven’t gotten a 2D platformer with the two of them, but maybe that back to basics track is what they should have tried in the first place.
But we won’t ignore that there may be fans of the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games franchise. It seems that Sega simply lost the franchise, and it’s possible that they tried and failed to renew it. We don’t know if it can return in the future, but if this is the end, it had a respectable 12 year run.
