Super Mario Bros.

The Super Mario Bros. pinball machine, released by Premier Technology (trading as Gottlieb) in April 1992 under license from Nintendo, holds a notable place in Gottlieb's history as the company's first game to use a Dot Matrix Display (DMD). Designed by Jon Norris with art by David Moore, Constantino Mitchell, and Jeanine Mitchell, it brought Mario's Mushroom Kingdom to the pinball world, with 4,200 units confirmed produced.

Gameplay features three flippers, three pop bumpers, two vertical up-kickers, one standup target, and two ramps, built around an elevated mini-playfield topped by a Revolving Castle toy - a physical centerpiece tied directly to the Mario theme. Combined with dot-matrix animations by Rand Paulin and Daryl Moore, this gave the game a more dynamic presentation than earlier Gottlieb machines.

While Super Mario Bros. wasn't the first pinball machine to license a video game character - Gottlieb itself had done so nearly a decade earlier with Q*Bert's Quest (1983) - it remains a high-profile, well-remembered tie-in to one of gaming's most iconic franchises, and its status as Gottlieb's DMD debut makes it a notable transitional machine in the company's own history.