Nintendo video game consoles
Although the company had earlier released Color TV Game and Game & Watch, which were their first and second systems respectfully, they did not achieve worldwide success until the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1983. The NES restarted the video game industry after the video game crash of 1983, and was an international success. In 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy, which became the first handheld console to sell in large numbers. In the early 1990s, Nintendo's market lead began to decrease; although the 1990 Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) was a strong seller, the Mega Drive/Genesis was a very strong contender. Nintendo and Sega would both lose a significant portion of the console market towards the end of the 1990s, as Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation became the most popular console, beating the Nintendo 64, though Nintendo managed to sell more than Sega Saturn.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Also that year, the young subsidiary Nintendo of America was just completing its test marketing of, and beginning its nationwide launch of, the new Nintendo Entertainment System and its flagship game, "Super Mario Bros." This American adaptation of the Famicom platform had been altogether deliberately delayed in the wake of the video game crash of 1983, a regional market disaster which the Japanese market had not directly experienced. The subsidiary did not want the increasingly popular "Mario" series to be known for maximal frustration and thus inaccessible to a recovering, transfiguring, and expanding market — nor to be stylistically outdated by the time the Japanese "Super Mario Bros. 2" could be eventually converted to the NES's cartridge format, localized, and mass-produced for America. Utilizing its considerable regional autonomy in order to avoid risking the franchise's popularity in this burgeoning market, Nintendo of America declined this game's American release and instead requested a newer and more player-friendly "Super Mario Bros." sequel for the non-Japanese world.