There was no Mario and Sonic game at these Olympics because the committee wanted to focus on NFTs and eSports.

The International Olympic Committee has ended its partnership with Nintendo and Sega regarding the Mario and Sonic saga at the Olympic Games in order to seek new partners, especially those related to NFTs and esports.

This year, the Paris Olympics are being held again, and many users are wondering about the absence of one of the sagas that used to accompany the celebration of the real event: the Mario and Sonic series. For the first time in two decades, a game from the series was not released to coincide with the event. As a veteran of the saga explained to our colleagues at Eurogamer UK, the International Olympic Committee has decided not to renew the agreement with Sega and Nintendo in 2020.

“They wanted to look at other partners, like NFTs or esports,” explained Lee Cocker, who worked on almost all of the series. Cocker worked for ISM Ltd, an outside company that handled Olympic video game licensing.

Over the past 20 years, six Mario & Sonic games have been released at the Olympic Games, corresponding to the events of 2007 Beijing, 2012 London, 2016 Rio, and 2020 Tokyo, in addition to delivering the Winter Festival Games in Vancouver, 2010, and Sochi, 2014.

Where then is the focus on NFTs and esports? While there was little publicity at the 2024 Paris Olympics, there was a video game: It’s called Olympics Go!, and it’s a free-to-play, micropayments-based game for mobile phones. There’s also a PC version. In both cases, you can compete in 12 Olympic sports.

On the other hand, NFT was also launched by nWay.