Mario (franchise)
Multimedia franchise by Nintendo
Mario is a Japanese video game series and media franchise created by Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for the video game company Nintendo. Starring 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, a 2026 sequel 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.
“Mario (franchise)” enters the record as multimedia franchise by Nintendo. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mario, franchise and Multimedia can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Mario (franchise)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Mario, franchise and Multimedia provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1993, 2023, 2026 and 1981.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Mario (franchise)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Mario (franchise) primary sources, Mario (franchise) archive and Mario research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mario (franchise)”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Mario (franchise)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.