Nintendo is "killing Mario" at the end of March

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This story about the "death of Mario", boiled down, in 1:56 minutes.

What's the fuss?

March 31st has been dubbed by the Internet as the day Mario "dies". Although this isn't entirely true, Nintendo's bizarre decision to pull a successful string of Mario games off the shelves at the end of the month makes it seem so.

The situation

With the inception of Super Mario in 1985, Nintendo celebrated Mario's 35th anniversary late last year by releasing numerous Mario-related products. Among these was Super Mario 3D All-Stars - a compilation of three fan favorite Mario games from past consoles: Super Mario 64 (1996), Super Mario Sunshine (2002), and Super Mario Galaxy (2007). These older games have been optimized to look better and to have their controls compatible with the new Nintendo Switch hardware.

Despite selling more than 8 million copies, Nintendo has been adamant that they will stop selling the game/compilation entirely after March 31, 2021. Without providing a concrete explanation as to why, gamers and the Internet alike have made the dramatic conclusion that Nintendo will be killing off the beloved character at the end of the month.

Boiling it down

The closest thing to an explanation from Nintendo is that they said the release is intended as a "celebration", whatever that means. Nintendo could be pulling something similar to what Disney did with their past "Disney Vault" - where the company temporarily re-released its animated films to home media (VHS, DVD, etc.) before pulling them back from being sold after some time.

According to Disney, this was done to keep their films fresh for newer generations. Inadvertently, these vaulted films became subject to be sold on auction websites for immense prices since they were no longer being sold officially. This problem may very well carry over to this Mario game after the month is up, further exacerbating the current scalper problem the consumer technology industry is facing.

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