Mario (franchise)
media franchise
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.
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 relies 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, such as 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 900 million copies of games sold, including more than 430 million for the Super Mario games alone, and one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Mario (franchise)” as media franchise. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as media franchise. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4803535. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1993, 2023, 2026 and 1981.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. 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 cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- 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.