Tech demo

A Tech Demo is a computer and video game industry term referring to short applications designed to gouge interest in an upcoming product or to demonstrate hardware-specific features. Tech Demos have various levels of interactivity, ranging from real-time videos to short but fully playable demonstrations. Tech Demos are rarely intended to be turned into fully fledged commercial products, though their ideas and concepts are sometimes reused.

Due to its status as Nintendo's flagship franchise, Mario has been the subject of or has been featured in many tech demos. Following is a list of them.

• Mario Demo, a short looping animation designed to show off the Virtual Boy's stereoscopic 3D effect. – Virtual Boy
• Yoshi Demo, was little more than an experimental demo. Whether Nintendo had intentions of ever releasing it is unknown. – Game Boy Advance
• Super Mario 128, an experiment with several gameplay concepts, of which some elements were used in Super Mario Galaxy. More dramatically, it served as a basis for the game Pikmin. – Nintendo GameCube
• Balloon Trip, a Yoshi's Island-themed minigame making use of the Nintendo DS's touchscreen and dual screen setup. It ended up forming the basis of Yoshi Touch and Go. – Nintendo DS
• New Super Mario Bros. Mii, an "experience" tech demo shown at E3 2011. – Wii U