The
Luigi franchise is a
media franchise consisting of video games published and produced by the Japanese company
Nintendo. It centers around the fictional character
Luigi, an Italian plumber who serves as the hero of a realm called the
Mushroom Kingdom. The franchise was created by game designer
Shigeru Miyamoto and its first installment was the arcade game
Bros., released on July 14, 1983. The games are primarily developed and self-published by Nintendo internally, with some games in the franchise being developed by other companies under Nintendo's supervision, such as
Hudson Soft,
Camelot Software Planning,
Intelligent Systems, and
AlphaDream. Most
Luigi games have been released for Nintendo's various video game consoles and handhelds, from the
third generation onwards.