Super Mario is a Japanese video game series and media franchise created by Nintendo and featuring their mascot, Mario, The Super Mario games follow Mario's adventures, typically in the fictional Mushroom Kingdom with Mario as the player character. He is often joined by his brother, Luigi, and occasionally by other members of the Mario cast. As in platform video games, the player runs and jumps across platforms and atop enemies in themed levels. Over 330 million copies of games in the Super Mario series have been sold worldwide making it the second best-selling video game series in history, being surpassed only by Nintendo's own Pokémon series. Much of the original Super Mario Bros music and sound effects have become iconic to the series and incorporated into modern games, the original Super Mario Bros. theme, composed by Koji Kondo, has become one of the most well known video game themes around the world. Shigeru Miyamoto created Mario while developing Donkey Kong in an attempt to produce a best-selling video game for Nintendo; previous titles like Sheriff had not achieved the same success as titles like Pac-Man. Originally, Miyamoto wanted to create a video game that used the characters Popeye, Bluto, and Olive Oyl. However, Miyamoto was unable to acquire a license to use the characters. So he ended up making an unnamed player character, while the protagonist was unnamed in the Japanese release, he was named Jumpman in the game's English instructions and Mario in the sales brochure. Miyamoto originally named the character Mr. Video, and he was to be used in every video game Miyamoto developed. Download Super Mario NES Collection
