INDEX: Mario Bros Merchandising Displays

INDEX:
Mario Bros Merchandising Displays

Mario Bros Merchandising Displays

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This Mario Bros Fixtures and Merchandising Displays index page aggregates links
to all posts and photos of retail merchandising, display, and outfitting
as well as deep Background courtesy of Wikipedia.

BACKSTORY: Mario Bros.^[a] is a 1983 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for arcades. It was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo’s chief engineer. Italian twin brother plumbers Mario and Luigiexterminate creatures, like turtles (Shellcreepers) and crabs emerging from the sewers by knocking them upside-down and kicking them away. The Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System version is the first game to be developed by Intelligent Systems. It is part of the Mariofranchise, but originally began as a spin-off from the Donkey Kong series.

The arcade and Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment Systemversions were received positively by critics. Elements introduced in Mario Bros., such as spinning bonus coins, turtles that can be flipped onto their backs, and Luigi, were carried over to Super Mario Bros. (1985) and became staples of the series.

An updated version, titled Mario Bros. Classic, is included as a minigame in all of the Super Mario Advance series and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (2003). The NES version of Mario Bros. had been re-released through the Wii and Wii U‘s Virtual Console as well as Nintendo Switch Online; the original arcade version was released by Hamster Corporation on the Nintendo Switch as part of the Arcade Archives series.^[4]

Mario Bros. features two plumbers,^[5] Italianbrothers Mario and Luigi, having to investigate the sewers after strange creatures have been appearing down there.^[6] The objective of the game is to defeat all of the enemies in each phase. The mechanics of Mario Bros. involve only running and jumping.^[7] Unlike future Mario games, players cannot jump on enemies and squash them, unless they were already turned on their back.^[8] Each phase is a series of platforms with pipes at each corner of the screen, along with an object called a “POW” block in the center.^[7] Phases use wraparound, meaning that enemies and players that go off to one side will reappear on the opposite side.^[9] Points are scored for defeating enemies and collecting the bonus coins that emerge from the pipes afterward.^[10]

Enemies are defeated by kicking them over once they have been flipped on their back.^[11] This is accomplished by hitting the platform the enemy is on directly beneath them.^[12] If the player allows too much time to pass after doing this the enemy will flip itself back over and recover.^[11]

There are four enemies which emerge from the pipes: the Shellcreeper;^[13] the Sidestepper;^[7] the Fighter Fly,^[12] which moves by jumping and can only be flipped when it is touching a platform; and the Slipice which turns platforms into slippery ice.^[14] A fifth enemy, fireballs, floats around the screen instead of sticking to platforms.^[15] The “POW” block will flip all enemies touching a platform or the floor when activated, but can only be used three times before disappearing.^[14] The game additionally contains bonus rounds.^[11] In later rounds, icicles begin to form on the underside of the platforms and fall off.

One life is lost whenever the player touches an un-flipped enemy, fireball, or fully formed icicle. The game ends when all lives are lost.

The arcade game was released in 1983, but there are conflicting release dates. Game Machine magazine reported that the game made its North American debut at the AMOA show during March 25–27 and entered mass-production in Japan on June 21.^[26] The book Arcade TV Game List (2006), authored by Masumi Akagi and published by the Amusement News Agency, lists the release dates as March 1983 in North America and June 1983 in Japan.^[1] Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said in a 2013 Nintendo Direct presentation that the game was first released in Japan on July 6, 1983.^[27]^[28]

Upon release, Mario Bros. was initially labeled as being the third game in the Donkey Kong series. For home video game conversions, Nintendo held the rights to the game in Japan, while licensing the overseas rights to Atari, Inc.^[29]

Mario Bros. was ported by other companies to the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit computers, Atari 7800,^[30] Amstrad CPC, and ZX Spectrum. The Commodore 64 has two versions: an Atarisoft port which was not commercially released^[31] and a 1986 version by Ocean Software. The Atari 8-bit computer version by Sculptured Software is the only home port which includes the falling icicles. An Apple II version was never commercially released,^[32] but copies of it appear to exist.^[33]

A port by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released in North America in June 1986. Another NES port was released in August 1993 exclusively in Germanyas part of the Classic Series.^[34]

A port for NEC’s PC-8001, unrelated to the Hudson Soft-developed Mario Bros. Special and Punch Ball Mario Bros., was developed by MISA and published by Westside Soft House in 1984. ^[35]

A modified version titled Kaettekita Mario Bros.,^[b] was released only in Japan on Novemeber 30, 1988, for the Famicom Disk System through the Disk Writer service.^[36]

In Taiwan and Mainland China, the game is sometimes nicknamed as Pipeline (管道) or Mr. Mary (瑪莉) due to the fact that pirated copies of this game were distributed widely, and pirate companies could not use the real name of the game and characters to bypass copyright.^{[citation needed]}

The NES version of Mario Bros. was ported via the Virtual Console service in North America, Australia, Europe and Japan for the Wii,^[37] Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U.^[38]^[39] The original arcade version of Mario Bros. was released in September 2017 for the Nintendo Switch as part of the Arcade Archives series.^[40]The NES version was a launch title for Nintendo Switch Online.^[41]

Nintendo included Mario Bros. as a bonus in a number of releases, including Super Mario Bros. 3^[42] and the Game Boy Advance’s Super Mario Advance series^[43] as well as Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga,^[44]The NES version is included as a piece of furniture in Animal Crossing for the GameCube, along with many other NES games, though this one requires the use of a Nintendo e-Reader and a North America-exclusive Animal Crossing e-Card.^[45]

In 2004, Namco released an arcade cabinet containing Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Mario Bros.The latter was altered for the vertical screen used by the other games, with the visible play area cropped on the sides.^[46] (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

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