Super Mario Galaxy is a 2007 platform game developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo and published by Nintendo for the Wii console. It is the third 3D platformer in the Super Mario series and marked a bold creative leap for the franchise, sending Mario into outer space. The game was directed by Yoshiaki Koizumi, produced by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takao Shimizu, and features a celebrated orchestral score by Mahito Yokota and Koji Kondo — the first symphony orchestra soundtrack in Mario history.
The game's defining innovation was its gravity-based gameplay. Players navigate spherical planets, asteroids, and pocket galaxies, each with its own gravitational pull, allowing Mario to run upside down, leap between worlds, and explore fully 3D environments in ways never before possible in the series. The story follows Mario as he embarks on an intergalactic mission to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser, aided by star-like creatures called Lumas and a mysterious woman named Rosalina. The game features over 40 galaxies to explore, with players collecting Power Stars to progress.
Upon release, Super Mario Galaxy received universal acclaim and is widely regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time. It holds a landmark aggregate score on Metacritic and was the first Nintendo title to win the BAFTA Award for Best Game. It sold over 12.8 million copies worldwide, making it the ninth best-selling Wii game. A direct sequel, Super Mario Galaxy 2, followed in 2010, and the game has been re-released on Nvidia Shield TV and Nintendo Switch as part of the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection.