Donkey Kong in the context of Racing game

Mario (/ˈmɑːrioʊ, ˈmærioʊ/ ; Japanese: マリオ) is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the star of the Mario franchise, a recurring character in the Donkey Kong franchise, and the mascot of their owner, the Japanese company Nintendo. Mario is an Italian-American plumber who lives in the Mushroom Kingdom with his younger twin brother, Luigi. Their adventures generally involve rescuing Princess Peach from the villain Bowser while using power-ups that give them different abilities. Mario is distinguished by his large nose and mustache, overalls, red cap, and high-pitched, exaggerated Italian accent.

Mario debuted as the player character of Donkey Kong, a 1981 platform game. Miyamoto created Mario because Nintendo was unable to license Popeye as the protagonist. The graphical limitations of arcade hardware influenced Mario's design, such as his nose, mustache, and overalls, and he was named after Nintendo of America's landlord, Mario Segale. Mario then starred in Mario Bros. (1983). Its 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System sequel, Super Mario Bros., began the successful Super Mario platformer series. Charles Martinet voiced Mario from 1991 to 2023, when he was succeeded by Kevin Afghani.

Donkey Kong is a 1981 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for arcades. As Mario (occasionally referred to as "Jumpman" at the time), the player runs and jumps on platforms and climbs ladders to ascend a construction site in New York City and rescue Pauline (occasionally referred to as "The Lady" at the time) from the giant gorilla Donkey Kong. It is the first game in the Donkey Kong series and Mario's first appearance in a video game.

Donkey Kong was created to salvage unsold arcade cabinets following the failure of Nintendo's Radar Scope (1980), and was designed for Nintendo of America's audience. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo's president at the time, assigned the project to first-time video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Drawing inspiration from "Beauty and the Beast" and American media such as Popeye and King Kong, Miyamoto developed the characters and scenario and designed the game alongside chief engineer Gunpei Yokoi. Donkey Kong was the most complex arcade game released at that point, using graphics for characterization, including cutscenes to illustrate a plot, and integrating multiple unique stages into the gameplay. The game pioneered the platform genre before the term existed, is the first to feature jumping, and is one of the first video games with a damsel in distress narrative, after Sheriff. It had a limited release in Japan on July 9, 1981, before receiving a wide release in the region some weeks later.

Shigeru Miyamoto (Japanese: 宮本 茂, Hepburn: Miyamoto Shigeru; born November 16, 1952) is a Japanese video game designer, producer and game director at Nintendo, where he has served as one of its representative directors as an executive since 2002. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in video games, he is the creator of some of the most acclaimed and best-selling game franchises of all time, including Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox and Pikmin. More than 1 billion copies of games featuring franchises created by Miyamoto have been sold.

Born in Sonobe, Kyoto, Miyamoto graduated from Kanazawa Municipal College of Industrial Arts. He originally sought a career as a manga artist, until developing an interest in video games. With the help of his father, he joined Nintendo in 1977 after impressing the president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, with his toys. He helped create art for the arcade game Sheriff, and was later tasked with designing a new arcade game, leading to the 1981 game Donkey Kong.

Mario is a video game series and media franchise created by Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo. Starring Mario, the franchise began with video games but has extended to other forms of media, including a television series, comic books, a 1993 film, a 2023 film, and a theme park area. Mario made his first video game appearance in the arcade game Donkey Kong (1981) and was featured in multiple Donkey Kong games prior to Mario Bros. (1983), the first game with "Mario" in the title. Mario video games have been developed by a variety of developers, with the vast majority produced and published by Nintendo and released exclusively on Nintendo's video game consoles.

The flagship Mario subseries is the Super Mario series of platform games starting with 1985's Super Mario Bros., which mostly follows Mario's adventures in the fictional world of the Mushroom Kingdom and typically rely on Mario's jumping ability to allow him to progress through levels. The franchise has spawned over 200 games of various genres and several subseries, including Mario Kart, Mario Party, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Paper Mario, and Mario & Luigi; several characters introduced in the Mario franchise, such as Luigi, Wario, and Yoshi, sparked successful franchises of their own.

Mario Bros. is a 1983 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for arcades. It was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo's chief engineer. Players control Italian twin brother plumbers Mario and Luigi as they exterminate turtle-like creatures, giant flies, and crabs emerging from the sewers of New York City by knocking them upside-down and kicking them away. The Famicom/NES version was the first game to be developed by Intelligent Systems. It is part of the Mario franchise and the first spin-off of the Donkey Kong series.

The arcade and Famicom/NES versions were received positively by critics. Elements introduced in Mario Bros., such as spinning bonus coins, turtles that can be flipped onto their backs, and Luigi, were carried over to Super Mario Bros. (1985) and became staples of the Mario series.

Nintendo Research & Development No. 1 Department (commonly abbreviated as Nintendo R&D1 and formerly known as Nintendo Research & Development Department before splitting in 1978) was a division of Nintendo, and is its oldest development team. Its creation coincided with Nintendo's entry into the video game industry, and the original R&D1 was headed by Gunpei Yokoi. The developer has created several notable Nintendo series such as Donkey Kong, Mario, and Metroid.

R&D1 developed the hugely successful Game Boy line, which was released in 1989. They developed some of the line's most popular games, such as Super Mario Land, and created the character of Wario.

Super Smash Bros. is a series of platform fighting video games published by Nintendo. Created by Masahiro Sakurai, the Super Smash Bros. series is a crossover featuring many characters from other video game series created by Nintendo and other developers. Its gameplay is distinct from traditional fighting games, with players aiming to knock each other off of stages after accumulating damage with numerous attacks. The games have also featured a variety of side modes, including single-player story modes.

Sakurai conceived the idea of Super Smash Bros. while working at HAL Laboratory in 1998 with the help of Satoru Iwata. The series's first game, Super Smash Bros. (1999), was released for the Nintendo 64 and used characters from Nintendo franchises including Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Kirby, and Pokémon. The game was a success, and Sakurai was asked to make a sequel for the then-upcoming GameCube, Super Smash Bros. Melee, which was developed in 13 months and released in 2001.

Pauline (Japanese: ポリーン, Hepburn: Porīn; pronounced [poɾiːɴ]) is a character from the Mario and Donkey Kong video game franchises by Nintendo. She was created by the Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and debuted as the Lady, the damsel in distress of the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong. In the game, she is kidnapped by Donkey Kong and must be rescued by her love interest, Mario.

She is one of the earliest examples of the damsel in distress archetype in video games, a trope that persisted in the following decades. Pauline was replaced by Princess Peach as Mario's love interest in the Super Mario series, though she continued to appear as Mario's friend in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series. In 2017, she reappeared as a supporting character in Super Mario Odyssey with a new role as the mayor of New Donk City. She has since appeared as a player character in various Mario spin-off games, such as Mario Tennis Aces, Mario Kart Tour, Mario Golf: Super Rush, Mario Strikers: Battle League, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Party Jamboree, and Mario Kart World. In 2025, a teenage Pauline appeared in Donkey Kong Bananza, where she was portrayed as Donkey Kong's sidekick.

Donkey Kong (DK) is a character created by the Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. A flagship character of the Japanese video game company Nintendo, he is the star of the Donkey Kong franchise and also appears in the Mario franchise. Donkey Kong is a large, powerful gorilla who leads the Kong family of simians. He is stubborn and buffoonish, and attacks using barrels. He wears a red necktie bearing his initials and is accompanied by supporting characters such as his sidekick Diddy Kong, rival Mario, and archenemy King K. Rool.

Donkey Kong debuted as the antagonist of Donkey Kong, a 1981 platform game. He has appeared in many video games, including the original Donkey Kong arcade games, the Donkey Kong Country series of side-scrolling platform games, Mario games such as Mario Kart and Mario Party, and the Super Smash Bros. series of crossover fighting games. The original game characterized Donkey Kong as Mario's rebellious pet; games since Country feature him as a player character protecting his stash of bananas. Some games include Cranky Kong, an alternate, elderly incarnation who breaks the fourth wall. Donkey Kong has appeared in animation, comics, children's books, Super Nintendo World theme park attractions, and merchandise such as Lego construction toys.

This is a list of video games for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) video game console, known as the Super Famicom (SFC) in Japan, that have sold or shipped at least one million copies. The best-selling game on the SNES is Super Mario World. First released in Japan on November 21, 1990, it went on to sell over 20 million units worldwide. The second Super Mario game on the SNES, Super Mario All-Stars, is the second-best-selling game on the platform, with sales in excess of 10.5 million units. The console's top five is rounded out by Rare's Donkey Kong Country in third, with sales of 9.3 million units, while its two follow-ups are also in the top ten, Super Mario Kart in fourth, selling over 8.7 million units, and Street Fighter II: The World Warrior in fifth, with 6.3 million units sold.

There are a total of 54 SNES/Super Famicom games on this list which are confirmed to have sold or shipped at least one million units. Of these, thirteen were developed by internal Nintendo development divisions. Other developers with the most million selling games include Capcom and Square, with nine games each in the list of 54. Of the 54 games on this list, 21 of them were published in one or more regions by Nintendo. Other publishers with multiple million selling games include Capcom with nine games, Square with eight games, Enix with five games, and Acclaim Entertainment with three games. The best selling franchises on the SNES include Super Mario (46.18 million combined units), Donkey Kong (17.96 million combined units), and Street Fighter (12.4 million combined units).