Mario Was The Star In The Rio 2016 Olympics Closing Ceremony

A lot has been said of Nintendo’s diminishing brand presence (although of late, they have managed to turn that around, between things like the positive response to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at E3, and the runaway success of Pokemon GO)- but when the company hits it, it really hits it out of the park.

Yesterday, the Rio 2016 Olympics came to a close, and in the transfer ceremony between Rio and Tokyo, who will be hosting the next Olympic games in 2020, no less than the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzō Abe, appeared, dressed up as Nintendo’s Mario, coming out of a warp pipe (seriously) as the Mario theme played in the back. No, this actually happened.

The result was that Mario was trending on Twitter yesterday, with hundreds of thousands of tweets made about Mario’s appearance at the Olympics. Hey, Nintendo- all the world’s eyes are on you. Maybe now would be a good time to announce that NX?

Shinzo Abe, the greatest video game character of all time #SuperMarioBros #ClosingCeremony https://t.co/2KwyRLrwys https://t.co/qkHainLfEp

— CBC Olympics (@CBCOlympics) August 22, 2016