Mario & Sonic Crossover Series Reportedly Killed by the International Olympic Committee

The 2024 Summer Olympic Games are currently underway, and while that often means a new entry in the Mario & Sonic crossover series, it seems Sega and Nintendo won’t be producing a game for this year’s event. In fact, it seems that the long-running series is now over. The International Olympic Committee apparently decided to end the partnership with the two gaming giants, instead focusing on ways that they could squeeze more money out of the license. In an interview with Eurogamer, Lee Cocker, who worked on every previous game in the series, offered some details about how things played out. 

“They wanted to look at other partners and NFTs and esports,” Cocker told Eurogamer. “Basically the IOC wanted to bring [it] back to themselves internally and look at other partners so they would get more money.”

The crossover series started in 2007 on Nintendo Wii with Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, released several months ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. From there, the series saw a new game released based on every Summer Olympics, with multiple titles based on the Winter Olympics as well. If the series truly is dead, this means that the Nintendo Switch game Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is the final entry in the series. 

While the Mario and Sonic series had been highly successful from a commercial standpoint, there had been signs that the series was in trouble. For the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, Sega produced three separate games, including Olympic Games 2020 – The Official Video Game, which got a multiplatform release, and Sonic at the Olympic Games, which was a mobile exclusive. In early 2023, a job listing hinted that Sega was looking to make a solo Sonic Olympic Games title for multiple platforms, including Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox. While nothing was ever officially announced by Sega, it seemed like that strategy would have allowed the company to make just one Olympics game with fewer development resources. However, it seems that strategy didn’t pan out. 

With Mario and Sonic not competing this year, the only game based on the 2024 Summer Olympics is Olympics Go! Paris 2024, which was developed by nWay and released on mobile and through the Epic Games Store. As noted by Eurogamer, the game’s existence would seem to corroborate Cocker’s claims, as it does feature NFT integration. Considering the swift collapse of the NFT market, it will be interesting to see if the IOC ends up regretting the decision to abandon Mario and Sonic! 

Have you enjoyed the Mario & Sonic series? Are you disappointed that the crossover series is at an end? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!