The Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series missed out on theParis Olympic Games in 2024, and according to one former executive producer, it might signal the end of the franchise.
Lee Cocker, who worked at International Sports Multimedia (ISM), which was the official licensee of the rights through the International Olympic Committee (IOC), was sharing footage from his time working on the Mario and Sonic games on X (formerly Twitter) andLinkedInwhen he mentioned that the franchise “finished” withMario & Sonic at the Olympics Games Tokyo 2020.
Cocker told Eurogamerthat the decision to not renew the licensing deal was because the IOC wanted to look into other opportunities, specifically 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,” Cocker said.
For the people that are asking there will be no@MarioSonicGamesfor@Paris2024the franchise finished with#MarioAndSonicat the#OlympicGames@Tokyo2020I know because I worked on all the games in the franchise.#Olympics#PARIS2024#videogames#gaming#esports#Nintendo#Segapic.twitter.com/o5OPEksF5G
— Lee Cocker (@leecocker)August 06, 2025
Those NFT and esports strategies appear to have come to fruition. In 2021, the IOC announcedofficial NFTsthat included copies of posters from previous Olympic games, mascots, and other virtual memorabilia. In 2024, theorganization officially created the Olympic Esports Games, which is set to debut next year in Saudi Arabia and take place there over the next 12 years.
But the IOC hasn’t dropped video games entirely. It launched the free-to-playOlympics Go! Paris 2024on PC, Android, and iOS, which has players compete in 12 sports. It’s developed by nWay Inc., the company IOC partnered with to sell NFTs. Previously, it releasedOlympic Games Jam: Beijing2022, which also featured NFTs.
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was officially licensed by the IOC through ISM starting with the original entryfor the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. These are party games that usually release the year before the Olympics, so there have been additions for the 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2020 games. Each is a party game that lets players use characters from both franchises to compete in Olympic-styled sports minigames. So yes, that means if there had been a 2024 version, we might’ve gotten a breakdancing minigame.
