Mario (franchise)

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Mario
The emblem on Mario's hat is an iconic symbol of the Mario franchise.
Created by	Shigeru Miyamoto
Original work	Mario Bros. (1983)[a]
Owner	Nintendo
Years	1983–present
Print publications
Novel(s)	Nintendo Gamebooks
Comics	Nintendo Comics System Super Mario-Kun Super Mario Adventures
Films and television
Film(s)	Super Mario Bros. (1993) The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Animated series	Saturday Supercade The Super Mario Bros. Super Show The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 Super Mario World
Direct-to-video	Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! (1986)
Games
Traditional	Electromechanical games list
Video game(s)	Super Mario series Luigi series Yoshi series Wario series Paper Mario series Mario & Luigi series Mario Kart series Mario Party series Mario sports games Mario puzzle games Mario role-playing games Mario educational games
Audio
Original music	Music list
Miscellaneous
Toy(s)	Lego Super Mario
Theme park attraction(s)	Super Nintendo World
Related franchise(s)	Donkey Kong
Official website
mario.nintendo.com

Mario^[b] is a video game series and media franchise created by Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo. Starring the titular plumber character Mario, the franchise began with video games but has extended to other forms of media, including a television series, comic books, a 1993 film, a 2023 film, and a theme park area. Mario made his first video game appearance in the arcade game Donkey Kong (1981) and was featured in multiple Donkey Kong games prior to Mario Bros. (1983), the first game with "Mario" in the title. Mario video games have been developed by a variety of developers, with the vast majority produced and published by Nintendo and released exclusively on Nintendo's video game consoles.

The flagship Mario subseries is the Super Mario series of platform games starting with 1985's Super Mario Bros., which mostly follows Mario's adventures in the fictional world of the Mushroom Kingdom and typically rely on Mario's jumping ability to allow him to progress through levels. The franchise has spawned over 200 games of various genres and several subseries, including Mario Kart, Mario Party, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Paper Mario, and Mario & Luigi; several characters introduced in the Mario franchise, Luigi, Wario, and Yoshi, sparked successful franchises of their own.

The Mario series is one of gaming's most successful and renowned franchises, with many of its games, in particular within the Super Mario subseries, considered some of the greatest video games ever made. It is the best-selling video game franchise of all time, with more than 830 million copies of games sold, including more than 430 million for the Super Mario games alone. Mario is also Nintendo's flagship franchise.

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