According to Takashi Iizuka, the crossover between Mario and Sonic came to be when SEGA acquired the license to make video games based off the Olympic Games. He said that having both series compete with one another was something that he had already discussed with Nintendo in the past, and since the Olympics are known to offer an atmosphere of competitive sportsmanship, this allowed SEGA and Nintendo the perfect premise to include characters from both the Mario and Sonic series of video games and compete against each other.