Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games dates from 2009, with development credited in our record to the studio Racjin. It continues the line of sports games that first put two long-standing rival mascots under a single Olympic licence, this time in winter disciplines.

The content of such a game is a set of short events: skiing, speed skating, ski jumping, curling and other winter sports, each built as a minigame with its own control scheme. Individual events last a minute or two, and the whole title is designed around passing a device between players rather than a long solo campaign.

2009 was the height of the period when games were designed around motion and touch input. Winter events suited that well, since carving a turn on skis or timing a jump translates neatly into a simple gesture that even a non-player can follow. Our record lists MS-DOS / PC and leaves the perspective and player-count fields blank. The title is known from the consoles and handhelds of the day, so treat the platform as a database classification rather than a description of the release.

The whole line rests on an official Olympic licence, unusual for a games brand since such agreements normally concern broadcasting rights. For the publisher it meant a regular four-year cycle tied to the actual Games, with a fixed deadline and a ready-made marketing frame. Winter editions carry fewer events than summer ones, but among them are sports that rarely appear in games at all, curling and biathlon included.

The year, the studio, the series and a set of images appear in this game's OldGame.cz record.