Mario and Sonic at the Olympics has been a long-running and popular video game series, adding four Summer Olympic games and two Winter Olympic games starting in 2007. Unfortunately, the series did not renew a game for the recent 2024 Olympics causing many upset fans worldwide. The popularity behind the series for so many years will make one wonder why there haven’t been other popular Olympic video game series.
Notable Olympic Video Games
The first officially licensed Olympic video game was called Hyper Sports and was released in 1984 by Konami.
The first unofficial Olympic video game was Olympic Decathlon released in 1980 by Microsoft. Companies like Konami, Activision, Sega, and Capcom have released many non-licensed games since then, mostly with track and field being the focus. Sega has led an officially licensed series of games from the 2000 Olympics to the 2020 Olympics with other companies like Treyarch and Ubisoft helping with both Winter and Summer games.
Since 1980 the lack of team sports Olympic video games is clear, the best-known is the EA Team USA Basketball released for the 1992 Olympics. With the Olympics being held in Los Angeles in 2028 a big opportunity would be to add a basketball-focused video game, the sport has grown massively worldwide, and would be easier to get licensed by the Olympic committee.
Conclusion
The lighthearted competitiveness made Mario and Sonic at the Olympics the pillar of Olympic video games, giving people of all ages countless hours of fun. With the International Olympic Committee citing a “tight timeline” as the main reason for not being able to produce a 2024 version of the game, some may still be concerned about future installments.
Mario and Sonic at the Olympics was the last domino to fall in Olympic video games and the future is unknown. As we have seen the hype behind older sports video game series being renewed like Backyard Sports and CFB 25, the chance to create a top market 2028 Olympic video game is not too far-fetched. The biggest issue is the economics behind it, with the Olympics wrapped up now the interest will not rise again until 2028 or possibly during qualifiers.
An Olympic Basketball video game series would be the best chance to have a successful franchise, the reason for the EA 1992 Basketball game not having success in sales was due to the lack of popularity of the sport around the world compared to today. Now and in the last 20 years, the game has completely changed, the US does not dominate the sport like in 1992. Countries across the globe have adopted Basketball into their culture and we have seen a wave of international athletes coming to the NBA.
Ultimately any developer will be hesitant to put out any sort of Olympic-style video game and any who do will have a lower budget. 2028 could be more of the same as 2024 or it could be the start of a new Olympic video game franchise, as we wait another 4 years no one can predict what will be the future of Olympic video games.
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