With the Super Mario series celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, one has to wonder how long the series can keep going. Game players still love Mario and his 2023 animated film was briefly the highest-grossing animated movie ever, so there’s potential that the plucky plumber will stay around long after his creators have gone to the coin heaven in the sky. That’s part of a segment included in the newly released “Nintendo Museum Official Book,” which is available at the museum in Kyoto, Japan.
As transcribed by VGC, Shigeru Miyamoto, Koji Kondo, Toshihiko Nakago, and Takashi Tezuka discuss the past, present, and future of the series and what it will take to keep Mario relevant going forward. Specifically, a segment about Mario living on until 2085 is brought up, and Tezuka says:
“One might think it would be a miracle if Mario was still here after 100 years, since we make things while not knowing when our players may get bored with them. If it’s not fun to play, you’ll get bored, and I’m always thinking of how to keep it so that something like that doesn’t happen so that people keep playing. Different times bring different kinds of fun. What Mario can do now is completely different from when we started out. I want to continue making things people find fun to play, including the actions you do, by changing things little by little.”
As the booklet states, Tezuka believes one reason Mario has remained popular is that multiple generations of individuals have been playing since 1985. As he lays out, it was once parents and their children, but now you have grandparents playing with grandkids. There’s a possible future where great-grandparents are playing with their great-grandchildren, and so on. That type of endearing quality should keep Mario relevant for decades.
Miyamoto added his thoughts about where he sees Mario going in the future. To him, interactivity is a core element that should always remain present. “It’s a given that Super Mario will constantly evolve by incorporating new digital technology,” Miyamoto said. “Now we’re working in visual fields like movies, but I want to make sure we keep it interactive and digital. As long as we don’t forget Mario’s prime point – running and jumping – as we add new things, I think Mario will be with us for a long time to come.”
Everyone agrees that by constantly evolving with the times, Mario should remain a constant figure in the gaming world. It’s a quality that Mario has had since his inception, so I don’t have nay fears that I’ll be trekking through the Mushroom Kingdom as I sit in a retirement home some day.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
