The original NES Super Mario Bros. was released in Japan on September 13, 1985. That's just a straight up fact. However, nobody can seem to agree on the official North American release date due to Nintendo's lack of writing anything down.
Gamasutra’s Frank Cifaldi launched an investigation to find the truth and discovered that nobody can agree.
He writes, "Most of our history books tell us that Super Mario Bros. did not come to America until 1986." One even narrowed it to March, 1986.
However, Nintendo themselves put a 1985 date on it.
It should be noted that Nintendo has an internal launch date for both the NES and Super Mario Bros.: October 18, 1985. For most that would be the end of it: we have an official source stating an exact date, end of story. But I want to know where that date came from, and what it actually means. Besides, Nintendo has been wrong about its own history before"
Meanwhile, the ever reliable Wikipedia (with two whole citations) suggests it came to America on November 17, 1985.
So when was it actually released?
By Ben Salter - Tweet @Ben_Salter