Nintendo discounts Mario games as 35th anniversary nears its end
European and North American sales discount select Mario games by 35%
Nintendo has temporarily dropped the price of some Mario games by 35% as part of its continued 35th anniversary celebrations.
In Europe, Paper Mario: The Origami King and Super Mario Maker 2 have dropped in price from €59.99 / £49.99 to €38.99 / £32.49.
The European discounts will last until the end of March 21.
Meanwhile, North America has four different games on sale: Super Mario Maker 2, Super Mario Party, Luigi’s Mansion 3 and Mario Tennis Aces have been discounted from $59.99 to $38.99 (from $79.99 to $51.99 in Canada).
The North American sale will end sooner, at 11.59 PT on Saturday, March 13.
The 35th anniversary of Super Mario ends on March 31, at which point a number of limited-time products will be delisted from the eShop and no longer manufactured physically.
These include compilation package Super Mario 3D All-Stars, last-man-standing Switch Online game Super Mario Bros 35 and the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch.
“The Super Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary campaign will end at the end of March 2021,” Nintendo said last week. “With the end of the campaign, the production, sales and services of some products will also end.”
Switch‘s flagship title Super Mario 3D All-Stars has been advertised as a limited time release since its first announcement, and from April 1 it will be pulled from the eShop and no new physical copies will be manufactured.
Anyone who buys Super Mario 3D All-Stars on the eShop before April 1 will still be able to play, delete and redownload the game after that date.
Meanwhile, the Switch Online battle royale title Super Mario Bros. 35 will also have its online servers shut down on April 1. Unlike Super Mario 3D All-Stars, however, Super Mario Bros. 35 will be unplayable after that date, meaning it will essentially become a ‘dead’ game.
Finally, the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch, which launched in November, will also no longer be manufactured starting April 1.
The Mario titles won’t be the only Nintendo products to be pulled at the end of March. The original Famicom version of Fire Emblem was localised to English for the first time and released in December 2020, but it too will be gone from the eShop by April 1.
