Mario and Luigi 20 years old. The game that really started it all.

It's just twenty years old on August 27th, when the game of games got its first Japanese release.

Nintendo's Super Mario Kart.

And probably the game that started it all. A huge business that gaming is.

The best selling video franchise of all-time, it was 32nd in the Nintendo top 100 popular games of all time (although I think that's a little unfair).

It's basically the first Kart racing game and the 2nd biggest selling WII game with over 32 million copies sold. There's been 7 versions since.

Luigi was always the hero but Mario is best known serving as Nintendo's mascot and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto (whilst developing Donkey Kong). Mario was an italian plumber (although a carpenter in the first game) who lives in Mushroom Kingdom and probably the best known mascot ever. Both Mario and Luigi were designed as being from Brooklyn in New York.

And it influenced so many other games, practically solely responsible for the Nintendo Entertainment System success. The Guinness book of records dubbed it "the godfather of gaming". It fostered a movie (with Bob Hoskins) and a TV series.

Of course things have changed a lot in online gaming but it's important to note that it's only 20 years when it all started. We've come a long way.

Gaming is one of the internet massive growth industries especially with the development of Flash and Java and is worth more than 20 billion usd annually. The online gaming association recently announced that 20 million players on Xbox Live had spent over 17 billion hours playing. 78% play with at least one other player and in some ways it's an addiction. 58% are male and therefore surprisingly, 42% female. 'Call of Duty' is considered to be the most pirated game of all time.

Amazing business is gaming.
And we forget about it sometimes.
Happy Mario Birthday.