When exactly was Super Mario Bros. released in the US? Nobody knows

http://content.usatoday.com/communi...-bros-launch-answer-is-unclear/1#.T3XrvfV3OnQ

One of the best-selling games of all time and not even Nintendo knows the exact date of its US release :topsy_turvy:

 

wouldnt it be the first day that the original entertainment sets went on sale in NYC as a test?
Shouldnt that be easy to find?

Or by default, call it the day they first sold one of those.
Shouldnt be that hard lol.

Sounds like USA today is spinning news because it was a slow news week.. no apple products launched haha

 

The test date is unclear for the NES. It was kinda just given to the shops, and they put'em out when they could.

Release dates on games back then was also kinda blurry.

 

the officially the day that NOA met with potential retailers.
That is what I would say would be the date the game "launched," when NOA was ready to actually sell it to retailers.

 

Read the Gamasutra article, apparently it's not even known when exactly the NES launched in the US.

 

Super Mario Brothers was released as a coin op first before the nes came out in the states. The biggest draw of that system, for me, was the ability to play the arcade game at home.

From a comment at the gamasutra article: There was a single-screen, Mario-only cabinet called Vs. Super Mario Bros. It was part of the Vs. Series line of games from Nintendo, which was being promoted pre-NES and in the first year or two that the NES was out. The arcade version is slightly modified from the original game, with some different layouts and warp zones and stuff.

 

According to Howard Lincoln who I talked to about 6 years ago the NES US release of Super Mario Brothers was 1st Febuary 1986. That is the date that the Guiness Book of Records also uses too.

 

I owned this game on the atari 2600.
When I finally played it on the NES it blew me away.

 

Your best bet is to go back and try and find a mention/record of it in a print magazine. Especially anything that is a first hand account, such as "mail bag" reader commentary.

 

Except Vs Super Mario Brothers did not come out until April 1986 which was a good few months after the NES was available...

 

Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. are not the same game

 

Yes, (edit: it appears i did not read the last part about the vs series featuring a platformer in the arcades)

mario brothers = mario and luigi hitting pipes from below to flip bad guys upside down with POW blocks.
SUPER mario brothers = 8 bit platformer.

AFAIK super mario brothers was not released as a coin-op, and was certainly never licensed to anyone else.
Mario Brothers on the other hand was released to the arcade Arcade, as well as:
Nintendo Entertainment System
Commodore 64
ZX Spectrum
Amstrad CPC
Apple II
Atari 2600
Atari 5200
Atari 7800
Atari XEGS

 

Play Choice 10? (I know i know, its an NES in an arcade cab setup, but I couldn't resist hehe)

 

poop.
no... lol.

I was thinking more on the lines of dedicated.
But platformers were never meant for the arcades. Strider was a good one though.

 

Even though they may not be able to narrow down the specific "launch day", I would think they could isolate the year/month at least.

 

Well, there was vs. Super Mario Bros. which is a customized arcade-version of SMB (i.e. the "get xxx lives"-bug is fixed):

 

You missed one, the Gameboy Advance. It was released as an e-reader pack.

 

I even remember telling my mom, "It's just like the arcade! Gotta get it!". It was out a few months before Xmas I remember, and it was painful waiting.

 

SUPER mario bros WAS a coin-op. Someone already posted a screen shot. It had slightly different levels.

 

According to The Arcade TV Game List 1971-2005, Super Mario Bros was released in May of 1986 in the US of A. That's in the "international" section of the book. Weirdly enough, it is listed in the Japanese section as 86/02, but in parenthesis (international only). I'm not sure if that's an import of the board or errata. He lists neither as "vs" but the system is included so perhaps it is meant to be inferred. The book is considered accurate. It was originally going to be the appendix of "It Started with Pong" which is, to say the least, well-researched.