The development of Super Mario Bros. began in the mid-1980s at Nintendo's R&D4 division, led by visionary designer Shigeru Miyamoto, who drew from personal childhood explorations of caves and sewers to craft immersive worlds. Co-designed by Takashi Tezuka, the game evolved from arcade predecessors like the 1983 Mario Bros., which introduced the plumber siblings fighting urban pests, and Donkey Kong, featuring single-screen jumps.
Programmed by Toshihiko Nakago, it was tailored for the Famicom, Nintendo's Japanese home console, amid the industry's recovery from the 1983 crash caused by market saturation and poor quality control. Released on September 13, 1985, in Japan, it quickly became a phenomenon, bundling with the NES in Western markets from 1986 to revive console gaming.