Rumor: Mario & Sonic series is finished

July 29: Is the future of the Mario & Sonic series in doubt? According to someone heavily involved with the series, it could be finished.

Lee Cocker, who has worked on every Mario & Sonic game, recently put out a message on social media stating that there won’t be a Mario & Sonic game for the 2024 Olympics. Given that the event is happening now, that’s not exactly surprising. But the same message also claims that the series is “finished” – things supposedly wrapped up with Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

Cocker’s website mentions that while he was with sports marketing and digital media firm ISM, he “was tasked with managing projects for SEGA, Nintendo, and the International Olympic Committee, specifically focusing on the development of Olympic Video Games.” Cocker worked on the very first title in the series on Wii, leading all the way up to the last game on Switch.

Six Mario & Sonic games were made in total. Aside from Wii and Switch, there were also games on Wii U, 3DS, and DS. Titles were created for both the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics.

As Nintendo / SEGA never made an official statement, we only have Cocker’s brief comment to go on. At the very least though, it looks like we shouldn’t expect a new Mario & Sonic game anytime soon, and the future is murky. 

July 30: Cocker has now said that the International Olympics Committee moved on from its deal with Nintendo and SEGA since it “wanted to look at other partners and NFTs and esports”. He added that “the IOC wanted to bring [it] back to themselves internally and look at other partners so they would get more money.” The Paris 2024 Games released Olympics Go Paris 2024 primarily for mobile, but it’s on PC as well.