The Longevity of Super Mario: How the classic game has evolved throughout the years to remain so popular.

If you think about the number of video games that exist these days, you can probably count on your fingers the number of characters from those games that the general public would probably recognise – even if they had never played those games themselves. One of those characters is Super Mario, an image that can be recognised by many people from across the whole world. Indeed, Mario has been around for a long time, appearing in more than 200 games across his 30 years as a key part of the gaming industry. We’ve put together some info about how Mario has changed over the years, showing you exactly why he is even more popular today than he ever was.

Donkey Kong 1981

This game wasn’t even on a console – you could only play this if you went to an arcade and spent some of your pocket money. Indeed, that’s exactly what lots of people chose to do, with young people across the world queuing for the privilege of playing the game. The graphics in this game were incredibly simple, yet they were still ground-breaking at the time. Nobody knew it at the time, but this was the start of something really special that would survive for decades.

NES Era

The NES console brought huge things for Mario, with games such as Super Mario Bros in 1985, and Pinball in 1984. This was big, because it meant that not only did people enjoy playing the games, but they could now do so from the comfort of their own homes, with their family watching. There were a huge range of games for this console and, despite lots of them being quite similar with regards to gameplay, people still tried as hard as they could to collect every single game in the series.

Modern Day Mario

Mario has always stayed loyal to Nintendo throughout the years, and that may explain why households often made sure that they always had at least one Nintendo device available for use. There’s no doubt that Mario has been Nintendo’s biggest selling character, but gaming in the modern day has helped even more thanks to one thing – online multiplayer games. Although previous consoles allowed players to play against each other, it was always a split-screen situation – whereas now, players from all over the world have the chance to get together and play the games that they know and love so much. Patrons of Mario, and other classic games that have stood the test of time and modernised as the decades pass, are well suited to the modern micro-games available on websites like Olybet.

Gamers noticed a huge difference with regards to the quality of their games upon the release of the Nintendo Switch console, which has fast become one of the biggest selling consoles of all time. This has the advantage of being able to be played either as a handheld device or on screen, with players using both options being able to play together. This means that Mario is now accessible to the younger generation, and the continuing production of Mario games means that it is likely that he will still be a household name for several generations to come.