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While Nintendo of America seems quite happy to giveSuper MarioBros. a publication date of October 18, 1985 (as seen on theVirtual Console service, its NES game listing, and in other places),not all gaming historians seem comfortable with that date. InTheUltimate History of Video Games, Steven Kent states that "[w]henNintendo went to New York,Super Mario Brothers, which wouldbecome the linchpin during the national launch of the NES, had notbeen introduced,"1 later explaining that "the cartridge wasavailable by the time Nintendo of America went national—the end of1986."2 Chris Kohler'sPower-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gavethe World an Extra Life also gives the game a 1986 release, simplynoting that "[t]he US version of the Famicom, renamed the NintendoEntertainment System, launched in New York City for Christmas 1985with games likeDuck Hunt,Wild Gunman, andDonkeyKong, but notSuper Mario Bros., which arrived in 1986."3Multiple Wikipedia discussions have spawned debating the actualrelease date ofSuper Mario Bros., but no conclusive answersseem to have been drawn.

With the actual release date of Mario's first sidescrollingadventure remaining such a mystery, we at TMK decided that somethinghad to be done. After all, how could we properly celebrate the 25thanniversary of the release ofSuper Mario Bros. if we didn'tknow exactly when that anniversary might be?

The Adventure Begins

Milwaukee Journal, October 5, 1985.

Off to the search engines and databases we went! Preliminary Internet researchseemed to reveal little new information, until another staff memberdirected me to Milwaukee Journal article from October 5, 1985.4 Inhis video game column, Edward J. Semrad previewed Nintendo'sthen-upcoming NES, giving the names of 15 launch titles as well asseveral scheduled for release in 1986. The initial lineup, as statedby Semrad, consisted of two packed-in games (Gyromite andDuck Hunt) as well as fifteen other titles:10-Yard Fight,Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Excitebike, Golf, Hogan's Alley, Ice Climber,Kung Fu, Pinball, Soccer, Stack-Up, Tennis, Wild Gunman, WreckingCrew, andSuper Mario Bros. While this mightinitially seem to answer the question, the article in question wasonly apreview of an upcoming system; games get delayed all thetime. It does, however, hint that Nintendo may have been planning toreleaseSuper Mario Bros. with the NES. Further research wasrequired.

Super Mario for Sale

Macy's NES ad, November 1985: NoDK Jr. Math, noMach Rider.

As the staff continued to investigate, we stumbled across areference to a Nintendo print ad in a November 1985 issue ofThe New York Times. However, no one on the Internet appearedto have a copy of the ad itself. Luckily, the archives at the localuniversity library had the past 100 years of the NYT on microfilm. After 30 minutes spent trying to find a misplaced roll of film, Ifound grainy visual support for Mr. Semrad's launch lineup. All15 supplemental titles Semrad mentioned were advertised for saleat New York City Macy's stores on Sunday, November 17, 1985, including"Super Mario."5

Even with these two different pieces of evidence, it's stillpossible that "Super Mario" was merelyplanned for release.Nintendo's advertising team, led by Gail Tilden, may have beenexpectingSuper Mario Bros. to be ready in time for theChristmas season, and designed the Macy's ad to reflect that. Furtherevidence was necessary, but we were unable to locate any. Perhaps thegame was delayed until the 1986 "national" launch, afterall?

Target ad, March 1986.

Rather than give up, I looked for the next known ad referencing theNES's titles, and managed to find a Target ad in the March 13, 1986Los Angeles Times. All fifteen games were once again listed, includingSuper Mario Bros.6 However, March of1986 was well before the national launch of the NES; instead, thisrepresented the second limited test of the NES, in the Los Angelesarea.7 At the very least, then, it seems fair to say thatSuperMario Bros. was released prior to the national launch inmid-to-late 1986, contrary to Kent'sUltimate History.

Beyond the Newspapers

At this point, our research was coming to a dead end. While wewere able to show that the game was advertised for sale much earlierthan the national launch of the NES, we really had no evidence withregards to the New York launch. To get a clearer answer, we needed tocontact someone with first hand experience of Nintendo's early years.After discussing the options, we sent an e-mail over to Gail Tilden,former NOA VP of Brand Management and the head of advertising andmarketing during the early NES launch. Tilden responded, happy tohelp us out with our research. We asked Tilden about the NYC launchof the NES, and mentioned our confusion at the release ofSuperMario Bros., given the discrepancies between articles from 1985and the variety of dates given by NOA. Tilden's response was asfollows:

"You are making me second guess myself as well. I would have said yes, but my memory says there were 15 games at launch, plus the two pack-ins. [Wikipedia] has them listed and it seems to be correct. Which would mean Mario followed very shortly thereafter."

While Tilden's response wasn't what we were hoping for, it seemednice to have some closure.Super Mario Bros. must not havebeen part of the NES launch then—or was it? A quick perusal of theWikipedia's NES page showed the list of list of 17 games (15 plus two packed-in titles) as10-Yard Fight,Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Donkey Kong Jr. Math, Duck Hunt, Excitebike,Golf, Gyromite, Hogan's Alley, Ice Climber, Kung Fu, Mach Rider,Pinball, Stack-Up, Tennis, Wild Gunman andWrecking Crew,citingSuper Smash Bros. Brawl as the source.8 However, thelist has two mistakes:Donkey Kong Jr. Math wasn't availableuntil at least mid-1986 as part of the national launch, and neitherwasMach Rider. Both have U.S. Copyright Office instruction bookletpublication dates from 1986, and (significantly) neither are includedin either newsprint advertisement. What's more, Semrad's previewarticle lists both titles as coming in 1986.

If Tilden was correct as to there being 15 launch titles (asidefrom the packed-inGyromite andDuck Hunt)9, eliminatingDonkey Kong Jr. Math andMach Rider leaves two titlesmissing. One of them is clearlySoccer, present in all launchprint ads and the preview (but, strangely, listed in NOA's internaldatabases as appearing in 1987 for some reason). The other? Well, itcan't be a classic arcade port—those didn't arrive until mid-to-late1986. The only title left isSuper Mario Bros.!

The Copyright Office and You

While researching Copyright Office listings, another interestingfact came to our attention: while most of the 15 NES launch titleshave October 18, 1985 listed as their date of publication (generally, the firstday the article in question was available for sale to a wholesaleretailer and/or the general public), themanual forSuper Mario Bros. has a given publication date of October 31, 1985. (The game itself has a publication date of September 14, 1985.) In theory, the CopyrightOffice's date of publication data should be correct, but there areoccasional discrepancies between when a title is regarded to have beenreleased to retailers and when it is actually available to thepublic.

Of course, there is still the chance that the game was neverreleased at all during the NYC run, even though it was planned for it.However, there is evidence to suggest that the NES versions werebeing produced, at the latest, in mid-October. A poster overon the Nintendoage forums managed to find a SMB cartridge with chipsmarked as being produced during the 42nd week of 1985.10 Thesecartridges should have been available for the L.A. launch in early1986, but there is a strong possibility they would also have beenavailable during the Christmas season in NYC.

Thank You Mario! But...

By this point, we thought we had worn out our available research.No new information seemed available anywhere, but it did seem safe toassert that Kent's statement of the game being unavailable until thenational launch was clearly incorrect. Naturally, it was just as Iwas about to write up our findings that someone stumbled across a blogentry by Kent in which he states that:

"According [to] Howard Lincoln, Minoru Arakawa, and Howard Philips [sic], the game was not available during the limited trial launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System in the winter of 1985. It was available the following year as Nintendo took the product nationwide."11

At first, this appeared to deal a crushing blow to all ourresearch, but it seems difficult to reconcile this statement with twodifferent print ads listing the game for sale, a preview articlespecifically listing it in the upcoming launch, and Tilden's memory of15 launch titles. It's possible that the trio were either referringto the game not being available at launch (but a few weeksafterwards), or not being available until 1986 (during the L.A. launch).There is also a chance, however slim, that some confusion was madebetweenSuper Mario Bros. andMario Bros., whichcertainly wasn't available until the 1986 launch (along withDonkeyKong and other classic arcade ports).

After all of this investigation, there are a limited number ofpossibilities remaining:

• The game was released on October 18, 1985, along with the otherlaunch titles and the system in a limited number of NYC stores.However, this appears to be contradicted by the copyright office'sDOP.
• The game was released on October 31, 1985, the date of the manual's publication.
• The game was planned for a launch release, but not actuallyavailable until some unknown point between October 18th and mid (tolate) November 1985, as seen in the Macy's ad.
• The game simply wasn't available until the L.A. launch in 1986.

While the actual launch date of the game remains an open question, it seems most likely that it was released during the NYC launch, between October 18th and November 17th of 1985. While we can't be certain of a release date prior to the Macy's advertisement on November 17th, I'm inclined to accept October 31st as the most likely release date of the title, given the Copyright Office's DOP for the SMB manual and Tilden's memory of SMB being present during the NYC launch.

The investigation will continue, but feel free to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. for the next 30 days!

Written byDavid Dayton
10/18/2010

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Incoming Message from ROB!

Frank Cifaldi over at 1UP.com recently posted an interesting article about the launch of the NES. Along with interviews with several members of the Nintendo launch team, the article includes a picture of the R.O.B. point of purchase display12. The R.O.B. display, although somewhat hard to see, appears to perfectly match the list of launch titles as found in both the NES preview article and the Macy's ad mentioned earlier in this feature.

Top Row:Gyromite, Stack-Up, Hogan's Alley, Duck Hunt
Second Row:Excitebike, Wrecking Crew, Wild Gunman
Third Row:Tennis, Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Pinball
Bottom Row:Soccer, 10-Yard Fight, Golf, Kung Fu, Ice Climber, Super Mario Bros. (water level)

It's worth noting that the 1UP article appears to use the incorrect Wikipedia list of launch games, listingMach Rider andDK Jr. Math as launch titles, instead ofSoccer andSuper Mario Bros. Both of the latter titles are present on the R.O.B. display.

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