Mario & Sonic at The Olympic Games - Development

Development

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was the second video game collaboration between Nintendo and Sega. After Sega transited from hardware to third-party development in 2001, the two companies worked together on F-Zero GX and developed a close relationship. The idea for a crossover title between Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog and Nintendo's Mario characters has been casually discussed between the two companies; the mascots' creators Yuji Naka and Shigeru Miyamoto, respectively, had their private discussions revealed in 2005. Sonic the Hedgehog is the protagonist of the video game series released by Sega in order to provide the company with a mascot to rival Nintendo's flagship character Mario in the early 1990s. Despite the discussions, the idea was not acted on as it lacked a setting that would give the game "an exclamation mark". The idea of an Olympic setting for the mascots originated after Sega was awarded the Beijing 2008 Olympic license approximately a year later. The developer adopted the IOC's mission to promote a sporting spirit and wanted to interest young people in the Olympics with its newly acquired license. The corporation decided to base the sports game around its characters that "young people love and are very iconic" instead of creating a more realistic simulation. Sega then requested Nintendo for permission to include Mario in the game, setting up the first matchup between their mascots. Nintendo approved and partnered with Sega in-house to add another layer of quality control to the development. Both companies felt that the competitive sportsmanship of the Olympic Games provided an ideal choice as a setting for the once-rival mascots.

Mario & Sonic was officially announced with a joint press release by Sega and Nintendo on March 28, 2007 and premiered at E3 2007. In another showing of the collaboration between the two companies, the game was predominantly developed by the Sega Sports R&D Department of Sega Japan under the supervision of Shigeru Miyamoto. Racjin and according to gaming site IGN, TOSE, a developer known to avoid crediting itself in its works, helped to develop Mario & Sonic. The game is officially licensed by the IOC through exclusive licensee ISM and is the first official video game of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. The president of Sega Europe stated that they originally planned a number of events, including judo, to fully epitomize the Olympics. However, the figure for the final product was reduced and judo was omitted. The development of the game was swifter than planned; in October 2007, Sega announced that Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games' scheduled release date for the Wii has been advanced by two weeks and the game had gone gold. It was released in 2007 in North America on November 6, in Australasia and Japan on November 22, in Europe on November 23, and in Korea on May 29, 2008. The DS version followed in 2008 in Japan on January 17, in North America on January 22, in Australasia on February 7, in Europe on February 8, and in Korea on June 26. Both versions were published by Nintendo for Japan (where it is known as Mario & Sonic at the Beijing Olympics (マリオ&ソニック AT 北京オリンピック?)) and by Sega for North America, Europe and all other regions.