Super Mario Bros. is a side-scrolling platformer video game released for the
Family Computer and
Nintendo Entertainment System in
1985. It shifted the gameplay away from its single-screen arcade predecessor,
Mario Bros., by featuring scrolling screens which allowed for longer
levels. While not the first game of the
Super Mario franchise (the first being
Donkey Kong),
Super Mario Bros. is the most iconic, and it introduced various series staples, including power-ups,
Mushroom Kingdom, classic enemies such as
Goombas, and the basic premise of rescuing
Princess Peach from
Bowser. As well as kicking off an entire series of
Super Mario platform games, the wild success of
Super Mario Bros. popularized the side-scrolling genre as a whole, helped revive the North American gaming industry after the
video game crash of 1983, and was largely responsible for the initial success of the Nintendo Entertainment System, with which it was bundled as a launch title. Until it was eventually surpassed by
Wii Sports,
Super Mario Bros. was the best-selling video game of all time for nearly three decades, with over 40 million copies sold worldwide.
