NES Why did Super Mario Bros. 3 take so long to reach overseas?

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Obviously, there was the Mario 2 debacle, but is there any reason for Mario 3 not to have released in 1989? Is it perhaps the chip shortage from the late 80’s? Is it oversaturation of the Mario brand at the time?

And what of the PAL release? It came in 1991, more than a year after the NA release. What would have needed to be changed to make the game playable in those regions? Of course, the first game came to PAL regions in 1987, but what would stop them from brining things over sooner?

 

[Bakuma1997]

Maybe they took the wrong warp pipe in Albuquerque

Jokes aside according to TV Tropes' Trivia page on the game, it did was the case of both the chip shortage and wanting to give Mario a waiting room, apparently they wanting to keep it a surprise for The Wizard movie's big twist

 

[RestoredaftrLostv2]

Multiple Reasons. Even the original Dragon Quest/Warriors took over 3 years to be released...

One infamous reason was that Nintendo wouldn't allow companies to release no more than 3 games a YEAR, so Konami made the ULTRA brand.

 

[Jeff]

Four reasons. 1. Nintendo of America wanted to put some Quality of life in the game such as not to shrink to regular Mario after getting hit, translate all the text, and have all the US players to get to know more about Nintendo.

2. Localization from the Japan to the US were brutal in the 80s because there were less translations for US to translate Japanese which Japan has three (Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana), and the US has different hardware than Japan

3. Nintendo of America wanted to keep a secret from their fans, so they ask Universal to make a commercial tie-in movie to advertise the games and the reveal of Super Mario 3 known as The Wizard or aka, The Super Mario Bros. 3 Nintendo Direct. Finally, McDonalds wanted to join the marketing bandwagon with Nintendo to release a Mario 3 Happy Meal set for the release of the game.


So to answer the question, it's because of Localization issues and Marketing.