Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Ends as License Heads Elsewhere

The Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games franchise ends after a run of 13 years as Nintendo and SEGA no longer hold the Olympic Games license. Those hoping for a Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 game will be disappointed to find that the official game of the Olympics is a free-to-play title that has only been released on mobile and PC.

The Olympic Games license is now held by nWay

F2P mobile gaming and Web3 developer nWay now holds the Olympic Games license and the studio has used it to create Olympics Go! Paris 2024 for iOS, Android, and PC. The free-to-play game features 12 mini-games such as swimming, fencing, golf, and archery, as well as the ability to build your own “dream city around Olympic venues with iconic landmarks.”

The news comes from former ISM Ltd Executive Producer Lee Cocker, who worked on the official Olympics video games on behalf of the worldwide licensee of the International Olympic Committee. He confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) that Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 was the sixth and final game in the franchise. Apparently, a Paris 2024 game was never planned for the franchise.

Cocker later told Eurogamer that the International Olympic Committee “wanted to look at other partners and NFTs and esports. Basically, the IOC wanted to bring [it] back to themselves internally and look at other partners so they would get more money.” The Olympics license had now passed to nWay, whose first game was the winter Olympics tie-in Olympic Games Jam: Beijing 2022.

Indeed, nWay has also created an officially licensed, commemorative Paris 2024 NFT Digital Pin collection. The collection includes two legendary and epic pins of the Paris 2024 mascot holding a flag and waving, although there are also base variants that are available for free.