GAME · 1996
Super Mario 64
- Developer
- Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development
- Publisher
- Nintendo
- Platforms
- Nintendo 64, Wii U
21 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
All facts (21)
- #001
Super Mario 64 traces back to an early 1990s concept by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, who envisioned a 3D Mario design while working on Star Fox (1993) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
- #002
Miyamoto considered building a Super NES title called Super Mario FX around the Super FX chip, with gameplay based on an entire world in miniature, like miniature trains. According to Star Fox engineer Dylan Cuthbert, Super Mario FX was not a game but the codename of the Super FX chip.
- #003
Miyamoto reworked the idea for the Nintendo 64, choosing that platform not for its greater power but because its controller offered more buttons for gameplay.
- #004
At the January 1993 Consumer Electronics Show, where Star Fox debuted, Nintendo's booth showed a talking 3D polygon animation of Mario's head. This later inspired the interactive Mario face on Super Mario 64's title screen, which was programmed by Giles Goddard.
- #005
According to Miyamoto, the Super Mario 64 development team consisted of around fifteen to twenty people.
- #006
Super Mario 64's development began with the characters and the camera system, and months were spent selecting a view and layout.
- #007
Takumi Kawagoe programmed the camera for Super Mario 64, applying what he had learned from working on the camera and cutscenes in Star Fox 2.
- #008
Super Mario 64 was among the first games for which Nintendo produced its illustrations internally rather than outsourcing them.
- #009
The graphics for Super Mario 64 were created with N-World, a toolkit based on Silicon Graphics (SGI) technology.
- #010
Before any levels existed for Super Mario 64, the development team tested and refined Mario's animations on a simple grid, prioritizing his movement.
- #011
To help players judge depth, the Super Mario 64 team placed a faux shadow directly beneath each object regardless of the area's lighting; Yoshiaki Koizumi called this an "iron-clad necessity" that "might not be realistic, but it's much easier to play".
- #012
Super Mario 64 was first run on an SGI Onyx emulator that emulated only the console's application programming interface, not its hardware.
- #013
The first test scenario for Super Mario 64's controls and physics had Mario interacting with a golden rabbit named "MIPS" after the Nintendo 64's MIPS architecture processors. The rabbit appeared in the final game as a Power Star holder.
- #014
Super Mario 64 was developed at the same time as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and because Ocarina of Time arrived more than two years later, some puzzles were taken for Super Mario 64.
- #015
The developers of Super Mario 64 attempted a split-screen multiplayer cooperative mode in which players would control Mario and his brother Luigi, but hardware constraints and an unsatisfactory implementation led to its removal.
- #016
The music for Super Mario 64 was composed by veteran composer Koji Kondo, who reinterpreted familiar melodies from earlier media and also wrote new material.
- #017
Yoji Inagaki handled sound design for Super Mario 64, producing hundreds of sound effects, and both he and Koji Kondo considered music and sound effects equally important.
- #018
According to Yoji Inagaki, the average Nintendo 64 game carried about 500 sound effects, compared with 1,200 for Ocarina of Time and 2,000 for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
- #019
Nintendo brought in Software Creations to handle audio programming for Super Mario 64 using the N64 Sound Tools sound system, which became the standard sound driver for the Nintendo 64.
- #020
Super Mario 64 is among the first games to feature Charles Martinet as the voice of Mario.
- #021
Leslie Swan, then senior editor of Nintendo Power and English localizer for Super Mario 64, provided the voice of Princess Peach in the game.
Sources & editorial notes
Sources for the entries on this page
- Wikipedia Super Mario 64 — Wikipedia
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work