Mario & Sonic is officially dead (at least, for now)

Good fucking riddance, I say

 

To be honest I don't think we were really missing out on much. The series failed to innovate with each entry, it really peaked at Vancouver 2010 which was pretty early on and then devolved into bi-yearly slop like Mario Party. But I do agree that they should take the opportunity to make a proper crossover game that's been sorely due since the early 2000's when Sonic went third party. It'd make an absurd amount of cash too thanks to the success of both series' movies.

 

The Olympics need Mario and Sonic far more than they need the Olympics. How many here have picked up officially licensed Olympics video games (other than Mario and Sonic) out of intrinsic interest? I certainly never have, I really don't give a shit about the Olympics honestly, so maybe in that sense they weren't a great tool for converting kids into Olympics fanatics, but the IOC was being paid by SEGA (and possibly Nintendo) to give them some really strong brand marketing.

Granted, I'm in no way torn up by this loss, the series had long since lost its lustre and was pretty quickly seen for what it is, cheap minigame fodder, but it still just seems like a baffling decision on the part of the IOC. At any rate, I too hope Nintendo and SEGA take this opportunity to take a look at the Mario and Sonic partnership and do something new with it.

 

My music remixes...

 

Can we get a real crossover now please.

 

Aw, man. I had a bad feeling that there wouldn't be an entry for this year's Olympics. I'm gonna miss my dumb minigame collections.

 

I would like to add to this and note that that there was also no M&S game for the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, Ubisoft managed to get the license to produce Olympics-themed DLC for their Steep sports videogame.

Honestly, I figured that by then, the series was on its way out. Sega either regularly-renewed the license to make Olympics-branded videogames years in advance, or signed onto long-term licensing contracts to make such games (I've seen different reports for both). But after both Nintendo and Sega's simultaneous fumbles during the 2010s (Nintendo with the Wii U; Sega with the Nintendo-exclusive partnership and Sonic Boom series); the series took a sales downturn after they left the Wii and DS.

I really do imagine the only reason Sega took on the Olympics license for 2020 (and only 2020) was specifically because it was set in the home country (Tokyo). And even that got mixed results--the games released on time -November 2019- but the COVID pandemic caused the Summer Games to get delayed to 2021...and yet despite that, M&S Tokyo 2020 still managed to sell over 400K there. Which for Sonic-sales-in-Japan standards is a huge milestone.

Personally I've long checked out from this series by this point and I'm ready for something else entirely if they're still gonna do videogame crossovers. I don't think I'm alone in saying something like the Lost World DLC (Sonic platforming levels set within other Nintendo series) is far closer towards what people would like to see.

 

The problem with the Olympics is that typically it's the same events every four years. So while yes, it would have been a thing to see a breakdancing Birdo this year, the vast majority of content would be the same as Tokyo, which was the same as Rio, which was the same as London. In real life when people age, we rally around national flags and new records are broken (not to mention things like "oooh different scenery"), the real sport is always interesting. Having Sonic show up every year wouldn't be. It's probably a worse situation than Mario Party in that regard (though I'm aware that series has also started recycling ideas).

My understanding is the Mario & Sonic games were able to get around the issues at first just by including more of the events. But there are a finite number of those, and you'll struggle to make a more engaging video game form of the 100m sprint every four years. They can't even pull the "next generation graphics" card this time, because presumably it would have been aimed at Switch (1).


Also it clearly peaked when they put Yoshi on a horse.


There's more potential with the regular olympics tie-in, but only if you could get the athletes' likenesses to actually emulate the Olympic Games. If it's just fictional characters (or a select few "celebrities") I don't think it would work, for the same reasons as above. Also you'd have to release it after the games for it to be somewhat accurate (see FIFA, Madden). Though a "what if this person actually made it to the games as planned" would be a weird curiosity.


Of course they could have done a "Mario & Sonic at the Paris 1900 Olympic Games" where you'd have to do ballooning, pidgeon racing, kite flying and "military exercise".

 

This was always their strategy for marketing the Olympics to children, but that strategy probably isn't working anymore. The 2020 game had virtually no fanfare and apparently sold like crap. Kids just aren't into Mario or Sonic like they used to be, and teenagers don't care about them at all. So if they wanted to use video games as a marketing tool, focusing on mobile apps and esports makes more sense from a business standpoint, and it'd also be way less expensive.

We know Sega won't do a real crossover until Sonic games are at the quality of Mario, and that will never happen, so the dream is dead.

Easy solution: have them at the World Games instead. There are different sports every time and all of them are weird.

 

By the way, if anyone here hasn't yet checked out the multiplayer modes in the DS version of Winter Olympics 2010, then I highly recommend that. It's frantic, fast-paced and a ton of fun with friends.

Joebro was talking about Summer Olympics specifically. And even though I've always preferred Winter Olympics (mainly because Cool Runnings was one of my favorite movies as a kid), they've always been secondary and way less important than the Summer Games, which are the "main" events. So I, and most others I imagine, wasn't too shocked to see M&S skip Pyeongchang.

It's actually the polar opposite based on what I've seen.

 

Yeah I was about to say, if we were talking about Sochi 2014 or Rio 2016 or so when we were still in the Wii U/Sonic Boom phase, that comment would be much more accurate. Not so much given the numerous Mario hits on the Switch, the surprise commercial success of Frontiers, and the current age of of the Hollywood movies (for both series, but Mario especially).

 

I don't want to deviate from the topic too much, but let me be clear I'm talking about the actual video games, not the brand itself. And I'm also not saying that kids don't care about Mario or Sonic at all, they clearly still engage with the games to some extent. But when it comes to children, mascot platformers are not the powerhouse they used to be. Not even those two. There are far more popular venues now for the Olympics to market themselves to children compared to 2007, or even 2016.

 

I'm not too torn up about it because the games kept getting worse over time, and I wasn't the biggest fan of them to begin with. Honestly I wish they gave Mario and Sonic a proper crossover than wasn't a minigame collection. I know Iizuka said a platformer wouldn't work cause the games play too differently but that doesn't rule out ideas like a fighting game or an RPG. Get the SMBZ guy to direct a fighting game, do a Mario & Luigi & Sonic & Shadow RPG, anything.

 

I honestly think a platformer could work. All you need to do is take a few creative liberties with how Mario and Sonic control. I can see a 2D crossover game in the style of Wonder where Sonic controls more like how he did in the 8-bit sonic games.

 

I don't agree with with the sentiment myself, but if Iizuka feels that way I don't think it'll happen. Either way it doesn't rule out other genres.

 

Straight up: just let the Mario Wonder team make a Mario & Sonic crossover.

A fan has made a SMBZ fighting game: https://sites.google.com/view/smbz-g