43 Years Ago Today, A Nintendo Classic Was Born

March is a big month for Nintendo milestones, and on March 14, 1983, Mario Bros. was unleashed in North America as part of the Game & Watch series.

There's something just so nostalgic and comforting about the Nintendo classics from the 1980s, and this is one of the finest.

Mario Bros. is a multi-screen Game & Watch video game starring, of course, Mario and Luigi. This game is special in that it brought the debut of Luigi. It's difficult to imagine a world without Mario and Luigi now, and they're beloved gaming characters to this day. This reporter may have even been Princess Peach for Halloween last year.

Nintendo manufactured 1,000,000 units of the game worldwide at the time, according to the company, and the game's model number was MW-56.

"The original Game & Watch system was released in Japan in 1980 and was the very first handheld gaming console created by Nintendo," Nintendo notes on its official website.

Nintendo History: Company Actually Dates Back to 1889

Sure, video games weren't around in 1889, but Nintendo dates back to that date. According to Nintendo's official website, the company, headquartered in Kyoto, Japan, has been offering a "wide range of entertainment products and experiences" since 1889, starting with the Hanafuda playing cards.

"Founded in 1889 by entrepreneur Yamauchi Fusajiro, Nintendo—then known as Nintendo Koppai—produced handmade playing cards, specifically for hanafuda, a popular game at the time," Britannica's research states of the company's beginnings.

Of course, the company evolved, and in the 1900s, it became the leading gaming company. "Business boomed for many decades—Nintendo is still one of the top hanafuda manufacturers in the world—but when Yamauchi’s grandson, Hiroshi, took over in 1949, he began looking for ways to diversify the company’s revenue streams," History.com notes.

"Since the 1983 release of the Family Computer (Famicom) system in Japan, and continuing through Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo’s focus has been the development, manufacturing, and sale of its gaming systems and software," they add.

According to their research, Nintendo has sold more than six billion video games and more than 870 million hardware units globally. Its known for franchise favorites such as Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon and Metroid, to name just a few.

So, Nintendo is truly a fascinating story of how a company can evolve over the generations. Happy 43rd birthday to Mario Bros. on Game & Watch.