Nintendo has pulled the plug on an unofficial Super Mario 64 fan project that allowed people to play the game's first level in HD from right within their web browser.
The project, called Super Mario 64 HD, was originally built by computer science student Erik Ross, who first recreated the level as a side project using the Unity game engine before he decided to share it with others and post it online. Instead of relying on players dusting off their old Nintendo 64 game consoles or setting up complicated game emulators, players could dive into the game just as easily as opening up a new tab in their browser, and it even worked with game controllers.
Here's what the new version of Super Mario 64 looked like, with the added HD textures and design.
As is often the case with unofficial game remakes, Nintendo caught wind of the game yesterday after it was covered extensively by the press. According to The Next Web, Nintendo's lawyers sent a copyright complaint to the company hosting the game online, Cloudflare, who then pulled the plug on Mario.
Here's the copyright notice:
The copyrighted work at issue is Nintendo’s Super Mario 64 video game (U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0000788138), including but not limited to the audiovisual work, computer program, music, and fictional character depictions. The web site at http://mario64-erik.u85.net/Web.html displays, and allows users to play, an electronic game that makes unauthorized use of copyright-protected features of Nintendo’s Super Mario 64 video game. Nintendo requests that CloudFlare, Inc. immediately disable public access to http://mario64-erik.u85.net/Web.
While it's game over for the browser version of the game, some are reporting that you can still download the desktop version for PC, Mac, or Linux online, though we're guessing those will disappear soon too.
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