Nintendo

Nintendo is a major video game company. They are responsible for publishing the EarthBound/Mother series, and for the Super Smash Bros. series, which features Ness and Lucas, the protagonists of respectively games. Nintendo is famous especially for the Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon series.

History
Nintendo was founded in the 19th century, creating playing cards. The company got many deals, including one with Disney allowing Nintendo to use Disney characters on the cards. Over time and management changes, they transitioned into the video game industry.Their first notable release was Donkey Kong in 1981. They eventually got enough sales to create the their first system. The NES is known for reviving the video game industry after the Video Game Crash of 1983. Nintendo released Mother for the NES exclusively in Japan despite the game being fully localized. This was due to the NES being at the end of its life span, and the imminent release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The original test cartridges housing the localized version of Mother were later leaked to the public. The first international EarthBound game was released for the SNES. Next in the home consoles was the Nintendo 64, which featured the first Super Smash Bros. game. Ness was among those playable in the game, which sparked greater interest in the franchise. The N64DD, a disk drive ad-on to the N64 was going to feature EarthBound 64, but it was canceled and development shifted to Mother 3 on the Game Boy Advance, one of their handheld systems. The Nintendo GameCube's only Mother related content was Super Smash Bros. Melee. Ness was once again playable. He was intended to be replaced by Lucas, but that fell through due to Mother 3's release being pushed back. In 2007, Nintendo unveiled the Wii, known as the Revolution at the time. It featured Super Smash Bros. Brawl as a killer app, which featured Ness and Lucas as playable characters, several Earthbound related stages and items, and Porky Minch as a boss in the story mode. During the Wii U's lifespan, Nintendo started to revive the Earthbound franchise via their virtual console services. Nintendo's social media app Miiverse notably encouraged a revival of the series, which was eventually heeded with the release of Earthbound on Wii U Virtual Console, and later on the New 3DS. Earthbound Zero, re-titled Earthbound Beginnings was latter re-released on Virtual console as well, marking the first time it has seen a proper US release. Earthbound was also a selling point for the SNES classic edition, a plug and play version of the SNES developed by Nintendo. Earthbound Beginnings and EarthBound were both released on 2022 for the Nintendo Switch Online's NES/SNES Classic video game library. Mother 3 and Mother 1+2 (a GBA port of the first two games) have yet to see an international release. Fans are currently lobbying for a release of Mother 3 in the same fashion as Earthbound Beginnings, however since Nintendo has never officially localized Mother 3, a release is unlikely.