In the past, Mario from Nintendo and Sonic the Hedgehog from Sega were often seen as fierce competitors. However, over the last two decades, they have collaborated in numerous games. Their first joint appearance was in the Wii game “Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games,” released in 2007. Since then, this collaboration has continued across various platforms, with the latest version appearing on Nintendo Switch. After many years of competing against each other in Olympic events, it appears that the developers at Sega decided to broaden the scope of “Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020” beyond just Mario, Sonic, and their respective families of characters.
Through a sequence of posts on Twitter, Lee Cocker (the producer of the Mario & Sonic series) shared an intriguing plan: they aimed to collaborate with prominent gaming and anime creators, including Capcom, Bandai Namco, Konami, and others. This collaboration would have expanded the game’s character roster significantly. However, negotiations with various companies were unsuccessful, leading them to focus on the well-known Mario and Sonic characters that had graced numerous previous games. Cocker hinted at some ambitious franchises Sega attempted to partner with!
Cocker posted on Twitter that the concept of combining popular video game franchises like Pokemon, Street Fighter, Mega Man, Dragonball, Metal Gear Solid, Sonic, Mario, Zelda (among others from Sony and Microsoft) was quite extensive but never came to fruition. The characters were only allowed for specific events.
Contemplating the possibilities of what could have been in this game is quite intriguing! Introducing various iconic video game characters from different franchises might have attracted players who previously didn’t engage with Mario & Sonic games. Imagine Link riding horses against Ponyta, or Solid Snake battling Mega Man in a shooting contest! However, it’s easy to envision the challenges developers would have faced (intentionally using ‘hurdles’) to make this vision a reality. The exclusivity of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 to Nintendo systems might have made it challenging to involve other companies, such as Sony and Microsoft, in the project.
Man, I used to dream about the day when Mario and Sonic would clash in the Olympics once more, but it seems those dreams might have to stay in the past for now. Last year, Cocker dropped some unfortunate news – the Mario & Sonic series is essentially buried, as the International Olympic Committee appears to be taking a drastically different approach for future video games.
There’s always a glimmer of hope that the series could resurface if their new ventures don’t pan out, but it looks like we’re in for a long wait before we can cheer on our favorite plumber and hedgehog duo again. If by some miracle the Olympics bring them back together, I sure hope they get to take on some other legendary characters this time around!
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2025-07-17 16:40