In a recent interview, former Sega dev Ryoichi Hasegawa dropped a very funny little bomb about Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. Nintendo reportedly insisted that Mario always be one step ahead of Sonic in the promo artwork. Not figuratively ahead, but literally. Foot placement, pixel priority, the whole shebang.
Hasegawa says there was an early piece of art where Sonic’s foot ended up slightly in front of Mario’s on the box, manuals, and disc. Sega got a note back from Nintendo with an ultimatum to fix the art or forget the game. Imagine being the artist who has to open the PSD and nudge Sonic back like he just got blue-shelled in his own crossover.
Context makes it even better, as this was around Beijing 2008, when Sonic was still recovering from Sonic 06, and Mario had just had a hit with Super Mario Galaxy.
GamesRadar did a quick box art sweep and, sure enough, the “Mario must lead” thing does hold up: Mario edges ahead in the Vancouver and London covers too, before they eventually relax into equal footing for Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.
On one hand, it’s petty branding nonsense. On the other hand, this is the most Nintendo move possible: obsessing over who is half a shoe-length ahead in key art for a crossover where Sonic canonically runs at Mach speeds, and Mario sometimes jumps. Sonic fans spent decades having “Mario vs. Sonic” playground arguments; turns out Nintendo was having the same argument in legal review, and Mario won by a single step.
Source: GamesRadar
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